God Blog

Shhh

2012-02-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

Penny and I sat in the dark cinema the other night, hoping people would settle down. They talked and laughed through the music, through the commercials and previews and, forebodingly, into the first seconds of the feature, "The Artist." We hoped the audience would settle down for the film, a silent one--and they did.

What is it about silence? Perhaps it is like a vacuum, and you know the saying: nature abhors a vacuum. And perhaps humans abhor silence. So, we pop in the ear buds and listen to music or the news as we exercise; we turn on the car radio and sing along; we wriggle in worship when there is one of those rare pauses.

We fill the silence, which is too bad. I like to be quiet. Perhaps it is because my Christian spirituality has been formed by the monastic tradition, which embraces silence and delights in it, because when there is silence, instead of my rushing in to fill it with words and sounds, or asking someone else to do the same, God will fill the silence for me with his presence.

His presence is sometimes a word-filled one--his words, not mine--or it may be a wordless presence, a feeling of deep peace or contentment or reasurrance. God knows what I need in the moment.

Early the other morning, as I was walking, I stopped thinking, stopped planning, even stopped praying. And I stilled my soul within me, as the psalmist puts it, and I let the silence of that new morning fill me up. As I drew the chilly air into my lungs, I imagined that I was breathing in the silence. And I did. With it came a deep and healing peace. And I was ready again for a world of words and sounds. And looking forward to the silence once more.

By headlights you shall find him

2012-01-10T11:13:00.000-08:00

It's Ephiphany, that season of God's lighting up the world in Jesus.

Remember the gospel story of how the star leads the three wise men to the baby Jesus?

They see him and worship him, who is born to be the king of love and to reign in love, which initiates a new world of justice, freedom, and peace.

The wise man rise from their worship and go home praising God and telling others what they have seen, God in flesh.

Ah, the wonder and awe of that moment.

Yesterday, a good friend from England wrote me, telling me that he had returned to church after a long absence. He was, is, drawn to church because of the music.

His return happened this way. His son had lost his mobile phone along the foothpath by the village church, and so he phoned up the vicar and asked him to look for the phone.

The vicar obliged and, by the light of his car's headlights, searched for the lost mobile. He rang my friend's house, telling his wife that he was unable to locate the phone.

The vicar said the family could recompense him by coming to church, which my friend and his wife did, attenting a Christmas choral service.

And so my friend is back in church and writing me with the news for which I rejoice.

The vicar's headlights have led him back into the light of Christ.

Thanks be to God.

Eulogizing Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

I've critiqued atheist Christopher Hitchens in columns and sermons; but when I heard the news on National Public Radio today that Hitchens had died of esophageal cancer at age 62, I was saddened.

I prayed for the repose of his soul. I thought, "Now, Hitch knows the truth about God."

I imagine a "New Yorker" cartoon: Hitchens--standing before God, the Author of Life--is holding a copy of his book, "God is not Great," his attack upon God. The book dangles in his fingertips, ready to fall onto the cloud. Hitchens looks stunned. God looks amused and says, "Surprised to see me?"

Christopher Hitchens's life abounded in accomplishments: Oxford University graduate; columnist for "The Nation" and "Vanity Fair," and many other publications; George Orwell-enthusiast, author of shelves of books, and much more.

As a reporter and aspiring columnist, I used to read Hitchens's columns in "The Nation." Weekly, he skewered the Reagan Administration. Later, he directed his wrath at Democratic administrations.

I think it's unjust, in my view of justice, that someone as intelligent, insightful, and creative as Hitchens should die at such a young age. He had so much more to think about, to talk about, to write about, to debate--about politics, literature, culture, religion.

Putting aside the unanswerable question of justice, I give God thanks that Hitchens enjoyed 62 years of life and contributed mightily during that time to public discourse on things that truly matter.

It's not the quantity of time, but the quality of the time that one has in this world that truly matters.

Hitchens lived fully and fruitfully during his relatively short life. He certainly gave me and many others a lot to ponder.

God be with you, Christopher Hitchens. Now, you see God face to face, as the Psalmist writes.

And God, you're in for some lively conversation.

God provides

2011-12-12T14:59:00.001-08:00

I confess that I was fretting a little about church finances earlier today.

We're doing well, ahead of where we were last year at this time, but I thought we were doing much better than that; people have been responsive to the 2012 Harvest Stewardship Campaign, including people who haven't pledged before.

Still, I was worried, and worry, while human, is not what Jesus wants from me or from any of his followers.

Instead, he wants us to trust him to provide for us. Indeed, in the gospels he counsels, again and again, "Do not fear" or "Do not be anxious about tomorrow," or some variation on that theme of putting one's total trust in his love and care.

As I swam on my lunch hour, I prayed, seeking to let go of the worry. My prayer was simple: "Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner."

And I let my anxiety go, trusting God to provide for Christ Church.

He did, too.

When I got back to the office just a few minutes ago, I opened a letter from a member. He had enclosed a check for $20,000, most of which will go to our capital campaign.

Thank you, member; and thank you, Jesus.

Testimony to the power of prayer

2011-11-21T10:27:00.000-08:00

I do a lot of praying, including for people in need.

I confess I don't know how prayer works, but I know it works.

I know it works because of all the prayers God has answered in my own life and because of all the prayers God has answered for others for whom I've prayed.

Recently, I received a card from a friend for whom Penny and I had prayed. She writes,

"When cancer returned...I was so afraid. I must confess that, in the past, I have had doubts about the effectiveness of intercessory prayer. However, I have also seen the Chumbley family 'at work,' as well as friends. I asked perfect strangers to pray for me (check-out people at the grocery store, people in elevators, etc).

"Their faces would light up when I asked and all would say, 'Absolutely. Of course.'

"Now, I have no more doubts!

"This scary time is past; cancer gone, no more discoverable!

"There is no way that I can begin to thank you--for your note, phone calls, visit--your caring.

"And your prayers."

Prayer works. Pray, in faith, and wait for God to answer your prayers according to his will, and God's will is always for our best.

God is good

2011-11-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

My email address incorporates this belief: God is good.

I saw that goodness unfold again this morning.

I had come home from my early morning date with The New York Times and a cup or two of bold coffee at Starbucks.

I looked out my front car window.

I saw it.

A big maple tree in the distance, its leaves bright in a brilliant pumpkin orange, standing against a slate-gray backdrop of sky, promising a shower.

It was an exquisite sight.

You'll have to take my word--or my description--for it. I forgot to take a photo.

The effect of this glimpse upon me was joy--joy that God had created such beauty, joy that I was alive to see it, joy.

God is the author of beauty, and beauty gives me joy.

Today, may I suggest, in words my teachers used to speak to me in a firm authoritative voice?

Pay attention.

Pay attention to what God wants to show you--and give you:

Pure joy.

Because God is good.

Appreciating what I have

2011-10-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

I visited yesterday with a man who had worshiped at Christ Episcopal Church on Sunday. He told me he and his wife were seeking a new church home.

I did a lot of listening and found myself moved by his sharing of his spiritual journey. He knew God as a loving, saving God. He was articulate in telling me his story. And authentic.

He had grown up in one particular denomination. It had been his family's tradition for generations. He had given a lot to his church over the years in service. He said he felt guilty thinking about leaving.

I asked him, "Might God be calling you to remain a spiritual leader right where you are?"

No, he said. He thought God was calling him elsewhere. And so he and his wife were visiting other churches on Sundays.

"I thought," he said, 'why not visit the Episcopal Church?'"

He said he was not angry with his former church or pastor or denomination. Rather, he no longer felt a sense of worship at his church and missed it. He needed to experience God's living presence once more, that sense of the holy.

At Christ Church on Sunday, the first thing he experienced was silence in the church before worship began. He saw people kneeling and praying in that silence.

And then he met God in the Holy Scriptures and sermon, in the music, and in the Holy Communion. Everything about the service, including kneeling for prayer and to receive Communion, helped him enter into the "moment" with God.

He left worship feeling filled spiritually. He was better prepared to meet the week ahead in faith, hope, love, and joy.

I sometimes take for granted what I experience here in the Holy Eucharist on Sundays and Thursdays, that sense of mystery, wonder, awe--the holy God.

And it takes a visitor to remind me how blessed I am by word and sacrament and this blessed community of faith.

Thank you, God.

Saturday in Joplin and the work is good

2011-10-17T14:59:00.000-07:00

I spent most of Saturday in Joplin at St. Philip's Episcopal Church.

St. Philip's hosted our Southern Deanery Meeting, which was preparation for the Diocesan Convention in November.

After the meeting and a delicious luncheon in the parish hall--thanks St. Philip's Altar Guild--clergy and laity alike joined in a mini-mission event.

We were there to get the parish hall ready for a second Free Garage Sale for the people who lost everything in the tornado several months ago. The event will take place this Saturday from 8 am to 2 pm.

In preparation, we unloaded trucks and cars full of donated goods from Kansas City, St. Louis, and Bentonville, Arkansas.

Donations included winter coats and other clothing, blankets, artificial Christmas trees and ornaments, even a bed.

A group from Christ Episcopal Church, Springfield, on Friday had delivered two vehicles full of new appliances and other items, which had been purchased by our Outreach Committee and assembled.

We filled the many tables that had been set up in the parish hall, the lounge, and the hallways of the church with the donated items. I wondered how the people of St. Philip's would manage on Sunday.

On Saturday in Joplin, we came together in that mini-mission--not only people from the Southern Deanery, but also youth groups from the Dioceses of Missouri and Arkansas.

We were one Episcopal family--one in our faith in Christ and one in his mission, reaching out in love to a hurting and suffering world.

And it felt good.

Now that's therapeutic touch

2011-10-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Daily Office gospel for today, Matthew 9. 18-26, tells about a ruler's daughter who has died.

The ruler comes to Jesus and begs for her life to be restored.

Isn't it interesting that this ruler, perhaps not a Jew, shows more faith than people of Jesus' own faith tradition?

He's willing, indeed eager, to rely upon the Lord and Jesus' power of salvation. Reliance is a way of understanding faith.

Do we show that equal level of reliance upon the Lord? Sometimes, I do, but many times I don't. I want to do better.

When Jesus arrives at the ruler's house, the wake has already begun. There's flute music, and I can hear that mournful tune being played, much as the Scottish bag pipes produce that wailing sound, that deep cry of a pierced heart.

He passes through the mourners, telling them them the girl is not dead. He knows what he will do, that in his hands and at his touch, there is no death, but only life. He finds the girl and takes her hand in his.

Her smooth hand is cold, lifeless, until that touch of the love and power of heaven to heal, which is Jesus' by way of his Father.

And she lives.

She rejoins her family and and resumes her life, but in a new way now, for her life has been transformed by Jesus and his touch. She knows that he holds the power of life in his hands, and that she lives because of him.

He is the Lord, even over death. As Welsh poet Dylan Thomas puts it, Death is no more.

As I read this gospel during Morning Prayer today, I found myself asking a question, perhaps one posed by God the Holy Spirit:

Lord Jesus: What in me, what in my relationships, what in this world is dead and is in need of your life-giving touch? I receive your touch now, Lord, and extend your therapeutic touch of love and life to others.

Are you unbalanced?

2011-09-27T14:29:00.001-07:00

Today at lunch, I saw a church member I hadn't seen at the Sunday Holy Eucharist in a long time. "I've missed you," I said. I say that to a lot of people these days.

She responded: "My life has gotten so out of balance."

She was the second person today who'd said that to me.

Life gets out of balance quickly because of family, work, travel, sports.

With so many commitments and so much stress, we jettison God, prayer, Bible reading, and especially weekly worship.

We say we don't have time. We declare, sometimes sharply: "I need that extra time on Sunday for my family. For myself."

The problem is that without that focus on God in daily prayer, silence, Scripture reading; without the Holy Eucharist or other worship at least once a week, every week, we lose our balance.

We wobble, then fall, and hurt ourselves, like a bicyclist who crashes on the roadside.

God becomes a stranger to us. Our fellow Christians who are in the pews from Sunday to Sunday become strangers to us as well.

Before long, we either forget about God altogether; or if we think about him and the possibility of worshiping him on a Sunday, we hesitate because we feel guilty or otherwise awkward returning to church after a long absence.

Perhaps we think God or the pastor will be angry with us.

But the Good News is that God's is always seeking us, wanting us back, welcoming us into his loving embrace when we re-turn to him.

I'm glad my friend recognized that her life had become unbalanced, that she was spending too much time working, too little time simply being with God.

If you're unbalanced, why not restore the balance right now? Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. And pray: "Come Lord Jesus."

And come, worship Christ this Sunday. He'll be glad you did. You'll be glad you did.

And that feeling you discover in worship will be what you've been missing for a long time now:

Balance.

Reflecting on September 11, 2001 in Christian community

2011-09-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, September 11, was Remembrance Sunday at Christ Episcopal Church, Springfield, MO. We remembered and prayed for the victims of the terrorist attacks ten years ago in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA.

And we recommitted ourselves to the work of love, justice, and peace as the followers of Jesus Christ, who met and destroyed evil, sin, and death forever.

Our worship at 11 am included a special piece of music composed by senior choir member Dr. Carlyle Sharpe, who teaches music composition at Drury University.

His offertory piece at the Holy Eucharist was based on Psalm 61 and was beautifully sung by our St. Gregory's Choir and by the Drury Singers, directed by our Director of Music Dr. Allin Sorenson.

Thank you Dr Sharpe, Dr. Sorenson, St. Gregory's Choir, Drury Singers, and Mrs. Barbara Hays, our organist.

Sunday after Sunday, many people comment on the beauty of worship at Christ Church, especially the music. I like to hear those comments. And yesterday, it seemed to me as if everyone who had worshiped at one of our three services felt moved, inspired, upheld in the midst of remembering a national horror. And everyone told me so.

As I reflect on Remembrance Sunday, I realize how important it is for people regularly to come together in prayer, music and hymns, silence, reflection on the Holy Scriptures, and for that Holy Communion with Christ and one another.

This gathering in worship of the living God is especially important on occasions like the anniversary of September 11.

Marriages, births, deaths, and other human experiences are occasions in which people want and need to enter into sacred space. It is our refuge in which to mourn our losses, to celebrate our blessings, to mark passages of all kinds. And it is there that we find deeper meaning, strength, courage, and wisdom for our earthly journeys.

Yesterday, as this country contemplated the terrible events of ten years ago, many of us turned to our communities of faith. There, we remembered the departed. We expressed our solidarity with their families. We listened to God's word and sought God's guidance for how we should live. We tried to find some meaning, however small, to help us carry on in this often frightening and unpredictable world.

In a television interview, one young man who had lost his father in the terrorist attacks said he was thankful he had his father for the first ten years of his life, which he regarded as the most formative one for him as a human being.

As I think about the services yesterday, I realize how much we human beings need one another and need to be together, especially in times of loss and sadness and confusion.

I also realize that these times when we are together with one another are also times when we are together with God. And in God, we people of faith find our fullest meaning and the hope and faith to live amid tragedy.

Daily God consciousness

2011-09-06T11:35:00.001-07:00

It's easy enough to do: save one's time with God for Sundays, if even then.

And that's too bad, for in doing so, we're missing out on God's second-by-second presence in our lives.

God, of course, is everywhere--not just in a church building's sacred space wherein God makes God's presence known to us in Word, Sacrament, and blessed community. Remember, Jesus says in the gospel--just this past Sunday, in fact--that, "When two or three are gathered together in my name, I am among them."

And the way to discover the everywhere-ness of God, as it were, is to practice mindfulness of God.

Try this for a day: in every task, however ordinary, offer it to God: when you're cutting the lawn, washing the dishes, writing a friend or a blog entry, walking or running or cycling, ask God to be part of that experience.

The monks at my favorite retreat site, the Trappist monastery of Gethsemani in Kentucky, pray as they work, "All for Thee."

In doing so, you'll further your consciousness of God, that second-by-second encounter with God. You'll discover God's presence with you everywhere and always, and not just on Sunday at church.

Indeed, with a consciousness overflowing with God's daily presence, you'll want to be in church and with God all the more.

Ahh: life is good, very good

2011-09-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Today, Labor Day, is a gorgeous day, at least here in Springfield, MO. The sun beams from a cloudless blue sky, while cool breezes bring a welcome respite from the blistering triple digit temperatures of much of the summer.

And now, if only we could get some showers. This gorgeous day would then become a perfect one.

As I rode my bike early this morning, I felt joyful, thrilled to be alive. With all the problems in our country--including those caused or aggravated by weather and politicians and economics--I can easily lose sight of my blessings and the goodness of creation.

And so I need times like this morning to make me stop and consider the gifts of being alive.

Among them are: Penny and our 35 years of marriage; our daughter Clare, who is an excellent mother; and of course our grand daughters June Elizabeth and Christa Marie.

Yesterday, the two of them delighted in their own creation at our church picnic at Camp Shawio. (Christ Episcopal Church is another of my great blessings.) While Christa stayed close to her Grammy and played, June and her Poppy played football with the big kids on the lawn. June, who will soon be four years old, ran from one end of the field to the other, kicking and throwing the ball, and, at times, wrestling other youngsters for it.

On days like today, I remember that life is not a problem to be endured until we take our final breaths, but life is a gift to thank God for daily, to be celebrated and enjoyed, and to be lived as fully as possible every minute of every day. Our lives are precious and unrepeatable.

Yes, at times, we struggle, facing many problems and even tragedies. Today may be such a day for you (I'm sorry; please let me know how I can pray for you); but in my experience, the good things in life--like a bike ride on a bright cool morning--far exceed the bad things. In Genesis, God says of all God has made, it is good, very good.

May you know today--and every day--that God speaks the truth. Always.

Michele Bachmann on God's judgment

2011-08-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

Whenever a hurricane or earthquake strikes, TV preacher Pat Robertson or someone of his particular theological persuasion will inevitably comment that God is punishing some part of humanity for a supposed transgression.

And today, U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota made just such a comment.

Ms. Bachmann, who draws many of her religious ideas from frightening fringe writers, said today that Hurricane Irene was God's judgement on Washington, D.C., for not being fiscally conservative enough.

She lashes out like a hurricane against Washington for spending too much public money--on the poor and ill and old, on schools, on research, on the unemployed, on food safety, on protecting the environment.

Her politics and religion, as recently reported, are more in line with the atheist proponent of selfishness Ayn Rand than with Jesus Christ. For more on her world view, read Ryan Lizza's profile of her in the New Yorker on August 15.

Ms. Bachmann believes God is destructive, angry, punishing. He uses nature to inflict pain and suffering on people who disobey his will, and his will coincides remarkably with her own.

She has created a god in her own image, which is the biblical definition of idolatry. John Wesley, the Anglican priest of the 18th century, once told a man who believed in such a god: "Sir, your god is the devil."

Unlike Ms. Bachmann's god, the one true God is bringing creation and order out of chaos. Natural disasters like Hurricane Irene are evidence of the disorder of creation. Creation is fallen, as are human beings, but God is raising up a fallen creation in redemption.

Despite what Ms. Bachmann believes, God's final word to humankind is not destruction, but new creation.

And new creation comes in Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior. Jesus brings order out of chaos. He begins this work in his life--remember the stories of his calming of the seas?--in his death on the cross, and in his resurrection. And he continues his saving work through the Holy Spirit until the end when he will come again to bring all things to their perfection.

May Michele Bachmann turn her heart from the proponents of selfishness, division, and hatred to the one true God who is revealed in Jesus, who says he has come not to judge and destroy the world, but to save it.

Happy birthday, Mother, on your 90th

2011-07-27T15:08:00.000-07:00

Penny, Clare, grand daughters June Elizabeth and Christa Marie, and I went to Louisville this past weekend for a family gathering, our first in two years.

The occasion was my mother's 90th birthday. The whole family, together with many friends gathered around tables in my sister Antoinette's lovely home on the outskirts of Cherokee Park. We enjoyed food and drink and told stories.

We looked at pictures, including ancient ones of my grandfather Michael Bodner's garage in South Louisville. Over the weekend, Mother talked about how strong her mother, Katie, was--how she managed a business and reared six children and took care of her husband following his stroke when he was still a relatively young man.

Being away from Louisville now for 25 years, I miss hearing the stories and that sense of family togetherness. I know many families are more distant, and not just geographically, than they are close and know that some families are more for feuding than deep fellowship.

But not ours. Even when my brother Ed and I are arguing politics--we called a cease-fire for this event--we still know we're bound by blood and shared history. He knows I spent a year praying for him to survive his tour of duty as a combat infantryman in Vietnam, where he was awarded both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

I'm proud of my brother's service. And I'm glad Air Force ROTC at the University of Louisville protected me from the draft and from Vietnam until the risk of draft passed over me like that angel of death who passed over the Israelites in Egypt. I'm content to let Ed be our only war hero. And thankful he's a living one.

Happily, my mother is in great health for a woman of her many years. She still drives and does some occasional work for my sister, who owns a women's clothing business in Louisville. She still attends Mass--if not daily, then at least on Sundays. I'm a person of faith because of my mother's holy example.

How has my mother lived so long? Her faith is the first and immediate answer that comes to my mind.

Her hearty, indomitable Germanic temperament is another. Mother is a hard worker. I used to joke that cleaning was her hobby. As a boy, I hated Saturdays, which were spent cleaning the house and yard. During the fall, Mother ordered me to keep the leaves raked up. I used to think she expected me to stand beneath the maples and oaks and catch the leaves as they fell. Our yard was always perfect. Just as our house was. Her house is immaculate today.

A woman of an indomitable and positive spirit, Mother's a survivor--of two marriages to alcoholic husbands and two divorces, which put her on the outs with the Roman Church for a time. When it was uncommon, she managed being a single mother with sole responsibility for providing for her children. She got work where she could and sacrificed to make sure we had what we needed. We children never had a lot, but always had what we needed. I still remember how food was rationed; I craved more than one slice of brisket at supper.

And she made sure that my siblings and I attended Roman Catholic schools for our religious and intellectual formation. The church was important to her. And still is. It's her foundation, as it was for her Austrian and Swiss forebears. I used to lament my time at the all-boys St. Francis of DeSales High School--I longed for the freedom (and girls) of public schools--but now I'm glad for the education and the self-discipline that those Carmelites imparted to me.

I'm the person I am largely because of my mother. I'm glad she's still with me. I hope that she'll be with me for years to come and that her great grand daughters, June and Christa, will come to know and love her as much as I do.

Happy birthday, Mother.

Which way?

2011-07-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

In Terrence Malick's new film, "The Tree of Life," the character of Mrs. O'Brien, played ethereally by Jessica Chastain, says there are two ways of living--the way of nature and the way of grace.

Mrs. O'Brien lives the way of grace--open, free, loving, accepting, even angelic--while her husband, played by Brad Pitt, lives the way of nature.

He is a driven perfectionist, frustrated that he never succeeded as a musician, but instead had to make do managing a plant in Waco, Texas. Mr. O'Brien, at times a brutal disciplinarian, takes out his frustration on his three young sons, especially on first-born Jack.

Malick's film, which earned the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is imaginative, slightly autobiographical, certainly theological, but at times disjointed. It regularly departs from the conventional Hollywood narrative style of beginning, middle, and end--a point that a woman in the theatre noted when she said, "I just want t a story."

Amid stunning images from nature that tell the story of creation and shifts in time and perspective that tell the story of the O'Brien family, "The Tree of Life" raises important ultimate questions, including: Why is there evil? Is there a God? Does God care for creation?

(Malick, a graduate of Harvard, read philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.)

And at the heart of the film is the question: Is this universe governed by something transcendental--the way of grace--or by something more elemental and natural, the human struggle for survival in a hostile world?

His mother's voice echoing in his memory, Jack recalls his mother saying of the way of grace that the only true and lasting happiness is when we love. If only Mr. O'Brien had followed that same way.

For me, the question "The Tree of Life" raises is: Am I living the way of nature or the way of grace? The way of death? Or the way of life.

Frankly, some days I live the way of nature, when I let my fears and troubles dominate me, when I fail to trust Christ with my life. These are miserable days. Happily, they're becoming increasingly fewer.

In contrast, the days when I live the way of grace, as Mrs. O'Brien does, I feel like dancing in the sprinkler in the front yard. I feel like singing and laughing. I feel so light and free that I think I'll take flight and flutter off like a butterfly.

God makes humans for the way of grace, and I seek a life in which the days of grace greatly outnumber the days of nature.

When God and I dance in the sprinkler in the front yard. And neither of us cares who sees us.

God Blog: Reflecting on the tragedy in Joplin, MO

2011-05-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

God Blog: Reflecting on the tragedy in Joplin, MO

Reflecting on the tragedy in Joplin, MO

2011-05-26T08:58:00.000-07:00

A friend complained that people on social media were saying that God was responsible for the deadly tornadoes in Joplin, MO, and elsewhere. They say God sent the storms as judgment.

Meanwhile, others are saying that the storms present proof that God doesn't exist; if God did, why would he permit the tornadoes?

These are two common responses to tragedy. I suppose it's human to try to make sense of something bad in order to live with it. Some efforts at making sense, however, make no sense: tornadoes as God's judgment?

Moreover, in my observation, when bad things happen, those who feel that they have been wronged by God, the church, religious people regard bad things as yet more evidence for holding onto their grievances against God, the church, believers--be they Christians, Jews, Muslims, or other.

No, I don't have a satisfactory explanation for why natural disasters take place in a world that I believe is governed by a God of love and mercy. No definitive answer exists to the Why, God? question, although some tentative answers are sounder than others.

And I wonder, if we found the answer, would it really mitigate the loss, grief, suffering? No.

In the face of such tragedy, then--both on the grand scale of Joplin, MO, and on the smaller scale of the person lamenting a diagnosis of cancer or the loss of a job or a divorce--all I can do is defer the Why question for now and ask the most important question at a time like this: the What question.

What can I do to ease the suffering of my neighbors in Joplin and in many more communities across the Midwest and the South?

Here are a few suggestions:

Send a check to Episcopal Relief and Development and write "tornado response" on the memo line. Mail your check to ERD, The Episcopal Church, 815 Second Ave., New York, N.Y.

If you live in Springfield, bring bottled water, diapers, personal hygiene items to Christ Episcopal Church, 601 East Walnut St., Monday through Friday, from 8 am to 5 pm. We're gathering items now and will transport them to Joplin.

And if you believe in God, pray for God to help.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in the wonderful new film, "I Am," God has only you.

Grief in the light of the resurrection

2011-05-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

A friend wrote me today about her profound sadness at the death of her parents in the last several months. My friend is grieving. What is particularly acute is the painful awareness that now the two people who had been with her at the very beginning of her life and through the decades that followed are no longer "on this planet," as she wrote. She is also the oldest of her parents' two surviving children, and she feels she is next in line for death.

I can relate to my friend's grief. My father has departed this life, but my mother, at 89 years of age, is still alert and active and a model for me of aging. As my sister told me today, my mother's doctor told her, "If you stop, you die." Like my mother, I intend to keep moving.

But I know that when my mother finally stops moving, because her body won't carry her any farther, and she joins my father in the life to come, I, too, will likely feel what my friend is feeling today: that keen loss of both my parents and the growing sense of the finality of my own earthly existence. Finality, but not futility.

Death is a staggering and sobering realization--and one few of us take note of, because we keep busy and distracted so much of the time. We don't like to think about final things, and yet final things, the certainty of them, may be just what we need to pay more attention to, for when we do note them in the right way--in faith--we live with a renewed urgency and deepened sense of appreciation for the fragility and fleetingness of this human existence.

As I ask ultimate questions--notably: What happens when my loved ones die? What happens when I die?--I face the heart of my Christian faith. I believe. I believe that when the end comes, I shall not fall into the dark empty nothingness, but shall rise from my grave in the light of God's love and in the power of the resurrection to that eternal bliss.

The end that I face, in faith, gives me the hope and joy I need to live with the tragedies, the suffering, and the losses of this earthly life.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

Life with that great cloud of witnesses

2011-04-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Early this morning, I was in one of those liminal states, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, when I sensed my father's presence. He didn't speak. I didn't see him. But I'm sure he was there, as if right beside me, and his presence was one of love for me.

My father, Gilbert Hurt Chumbley, Sr., died in November 1994. Although we'd had our struggles over the years, especially because of his alcoholism, we loved one another. After a long absence from one another, we'd kiss one another on the cheek. I thought nothing about it. It seemed right.

Saturdays, when I still lived near him in Louisville we'd spend our mornings together, drinking coffee and talking. Then when I moved away--first to seminary in New York City and then to southern Kentucky and later to upstate New York--we'd talk on Saturdays by phone. We never missed a Saturday.

I knew my father loved me. He told me so. He showed me. He always told me how proud he was of me. I've tried to be that kind of father to my daughter Clare, and now, I'm trying to be that kind of grandfather to June Elizabeth and Christa Marie.

At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, I remember my dad in the prayers for the departed, my spiritual director telling me a long time ago that doing so would help me stay connected with him spiritually. It works, too.

This morning in that dream state, my dad visited me. He was alive with love for me.

And then this morning at the Holy Eucharist at the sleepy hour of 7, I read the lesson from Hebrews 9.11-15, 24-28 and heard those words outwardly and inwardly.

The writer speaks about the Communion of Saints, that great cloud of witnesses who compasses us about, to quote the Prayer Book, with their loving and strengthening presence.

Today in my dream, the heavenly and earthly communions met, and my dad and I were together again, if only for an instant, and I believe and know that we shall be together again. Only momentarily in this world. But then eternally in the world to come.

Daddy, I love you.

Standing with the Islamic community in Springfield, MO

2011-04-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

At this week's meeting of our Interfaith Alliance, a member of the Islamic Center reported on the latest hate attack on her faith community. Someone had left an anonymous threatening letter at the center. The writer, she told us, said that Muslims don't belong in Springfield. He called for "death to Islam." And he left behind not only his odious letter, but also three partially burned Korans, the Muslim sacred scriptures. One of our constitutional rights as Americans is freedom of religion. Every person may worship the God of his or her choice or worship no God at all. This right is one for which Americans have fought and died to preserve throughout our history. Indeed, America was first settled by people who fled religious persecution in Europe. These dissenters came here for refuge from religious intolerance and for the freedom to worship as they wanted. And yet today, religious and political extremists, who are ignorant of American history and the Constitution or indifferent to them, are attacking Islam. Infamously, Representative Peter King of New York devoted congressional hearings to promoting the idea that Islam is a threat to America. Other vote-seeking politicians, along with ratings-crazed media stars of the right are using Islam to foster hate, hysteria, and division. The only antidote to fear is fact. We must learn about Islam, including from its faithful adherents. Members of the Springfield Interfaith Alliance are doing just that. We're not only learning from the local Islamic community, but we're also partnering with them in promoting a better community for all people. Hitler's rise to power was facilitated by the silence of many German Christian people. Such growth of rank evil cannot be allowed to take root and grow in our good community here. From pulpits and pews, at lunch tables and across backyard fences, people of faith and good will must speak out and to declare: There is only one God, and all people are brothers and sisters in God's one human family. The purveyors of hate and violence will neither separate us nor drive us into silence and fearfulness. We shall meet evil with love for and solidarity with the persecuted. This is our city, and it's a good community--one that we intend to maintain as a place of hospitality, not hostility.

Lamenting the loss of a voice

2011-03-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

Bob Herbert, a New York Times' columnist, announced in Saturday's paper that he was ending his column after 18 years. He said he'd be working outside of journalism to help the poor and other struggling people. Ordinarily, I'd take little notice of a columnist laying down his pen, but not this time. Herbert's leaving opinion journalism is a huge loss, especially for people who care about the growing distress of the poor and marginalized in America. In Saturday's column, Herbert opines, as he often did, about the growing chasm between the very rich and the very poor. He writes that, "The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation's wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent" (New York Times, Saturday, March 27). In the same column, he cites one important way that this shifting of wealth takes place. He writes, "Despite profits of $14.2 billion--$5.1 billion from its operations in the United States--General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year." GE managed this feat, according to the Times' report that Herbert quotes, through an "aggressive strategy that mixes lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore." Having been in business, I know corporations do a lot of good. I've seen it. They create products and services that improve and even extend our lives. And companies employ millions of Americans and give billions of dollars to charities. No responsible person would advocate abolishing American companies or expropriating their legitimately earned profits (shareholders expect returns on their investments) or nationalizing them. I'm not advocating such treatment. But Christians and others who care about justice need to be concerned that U.S. tax policy has, within the last decade or more, exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor. We need to be alarmed that deep cuts in spending on social welfare programs and public education have pummeled the poor and other vulnerable members of our society and have put everyone's future at risk. And we need to pay attention to what's happening in North Africa and in the Middle East and right here in America. Everywhere, the poor and even the middle class are demanding justice, mercy, and compassion. Bob Herbert was like one of those Old Testament prophets. They railed against the sins of the powerful in Israel who defied God and trampled upon the poor, the old, the young. And because the powerful ignored the Word of the Lord and failed to repent of their idolatry and injustice, they brought the wrath of God down upon themselves. I hope Herbert will be as successful outside journalism as he was inside it as a passionate, truth-telling advocate for the poor and oppressed. And I hope the people of America , including those who represent us in government, are listening to the voices of the prophets while there is still time to heed their warnings.

Life could be a lot harder for Missouri's jobless, thanks to one state senator

2011-03-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

Every day, I read the newspapers, and every day, I'm outraged.

If it's not the governor of Wisconsin taking money from billionaires and doing their union-busing bidding, it's a Kansas legislator advocating that illegal immigrants be shot dead from helicopters.

Yes, I'm serious; he really said it.

Here's today's outrage from right here in Missouri. The local paper reports that a Missouri state senator is introducing legislation that would refuse all Federal funds for extending unemployment benefits to the jobless and for supporting public education in the state.

And if he doesn't get his way, he says he'll filibuster all legislation. He'll shut government down.

Why? He claims Missouri voters gave him and like-minded legislators a mandate to cut the Federal deficit. He'll pay any cost to do so.

Of course, the cost of such shortsighted legislation is never paid by the politicians who push it, but it's always paid by the unemployed, the young, and the poor.

I'm waiting for this Missouri senator and his bill's co-sponsors to share in the sacrifice and suffering that they're wanting to impose on some of Missouri's most vulnerable citizens.

They can start by foregoing their tax-payer supported salaries and benefits.

Perhaps then--with foreclosures threatened, their utilities shut off, and their children crying with hunger--they'll feel the pain they're inflicting on others and start acting to relieve the pain of all those Missourians who are hurting.

Egypt is a reminder

2011-02-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, people are clamoring for justice, freedom, and peace.

In theological terms, theirs is a cry for the coming of the Kingdom of God or Heaven, depending upon which gospel writer you're reading.

We in this country--with our material abundance and our freedoms and our dysfunctional democracy--would do well to pay attention to the protest movements abroad.

People abroad are tired of autocracy. They're tired of oppression. They're tired of slavery under harsh and heartless rulers. They want to know that they will have what they need for good, healthy, and happy lives for themselves and for their children and grandchildren.

It's a worthy desire, even a timeless one, and it's at the heart of the prophetic tradition of biblical religion.

A few Sundays ago, Christians who follow the Sunday lectionary heard the prophet Micah tell God's people, especially those who had forgotten the deepest part of their faith in God and faithfulness to Him as His servant people.

To paraphrase Micah, God requires of all His people--Jews, Christians, Muslims, people of all faiths--that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Would that Mubarak in Egypt had done so for the last 30 years of his rule. Would that the leaders of Yemen, of Jordan, of Algeria, of Iran, of Afghanistan, of Iraq would do so.

I hope all the world's leaders, including those in this country, are paying attention to protests.

Would that every ruler and every political party heed the words of the prophet Micah and all the prophets and realize that their loyalty is not to party, not to ideology, not to rich contributors, but ultimately and fundamentally to the God of justice.

Those in positions of authority are God's servant on earth, and as such, they are also servants of God's beloved children. All of them.

When we see that kind of governance--and perhaps it's beginning abroad--we'll see the Kingdom of God or Heaven emerging on earth, which is God's intent.

Reading the Bible through many eyes

2011-02-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

When we read the Holy Scriptures through our own eyes only, we see only part of what God wants to reveal to us.

But when we read the Scriptures with others, through many eyes, then we more fully see what God wants to show us about Himself, ourselves, our relationships, and the world beyond our doors.

The theme of this year's Trinity Institute at Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, which I recently attended, was "Reading Scripture through Many Eyes."

This year's lectures and discussions were illuminating. Two lectures in particular were helpful in broadening my understanding of reading and interpreting the Bible.

In the first lecture of the institute, Dr. Walter Bruggemann, a retired professor of Hebrew Scriptures at Columbia Seminary, traced the history of biblical interpretation over the centuries.

He started with the literalist reading and interpreting of the Bible and then moved on to the historical/critical method of the 19th and 20th centuries and concluded with a call for what he described as a post-critical reading and interpretation for today.

This post-critical method employs the best of its predecessors--the spiritual devotion often found among the literalists, the questioning rationalism of the modernists--and unites it with even more perspectives: psychology, sociology, trauma and gender studies, political theory, and more.

In a more rounded, even global view, readers more fully see the living Word of God amid the words of these sacred texts.

During the last lecture of the institute, Dr. Gerald West, a Biblical scholar from South Africa, looked at ways to involve church people in a deep and thorough process of Scripture reading and reflecting.

This approach sounded a lot like the African Bible study method or the Liberation Theology approach of reading and responding to the Bible in Base Communities.

West urged readers to gather around the Scriptures, to respond to the Word through our many and diverse experiences, and then to share with one another what we hear God saying to us--what God is calling us to be and to do, in African Bible study language.

"The Bible," West said, "belongs to the whole community." He urged readers of the Scriptures to listen not just to one another, but also to "people on the margins," including the poor, the homeless, the sick--whoever the marginalized are.

From church history, I know that when the church has been its most vital, it is because it has reconnected with its ancient roots in the Holy Scriptures. Out of that encounter with the living Word, Christians have renewed, even revolutionized the church and society.

Look what happened during the Protestant Reformation. Remember what inspired the Abolitionist Movement in Britian and in this country during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Today, what if we church people started reading the Bible together, inviting everyone to participate, including the marginalized? Reading the Bible through many eyes, we might get a fuller picture of the living God and His relationship to us and to the world.

We might even say, "We're reading the Bible. Watch out church and world. Change is coming."

Let it snow

2011-02-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

I'm in my study watching waves of snow blow past my window. Streets are empty. The only sound is that of the wind whoosing through the trees. It's a time when the feverish pace of life, including my own, slows. A time perhaps when God whispers: Be still and know that I am God.

Today, if the snow confines you, or reduces your activities, or at least forces you to pause amid your usual hurry, thank God for the gift of snow. Seek its blessings. Pray for those who are poor and poorly sheltered, that God will minister to them. Remember those must work amid the storm.

And instead of cursing the snow, contemplate this wonder of God's creation.

Elizabeth Edwards, cancer, and God

2010-12-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Today on National Public Radio, a reporter described an interview he had had with the late Elizabeth Edwards, who died yesterday of breast cancer. Edwards was the wife of John Edwards, former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate.

The reporter himself had survived cancer, he said, and he and Edwards quickly formed a bond because of their illness. He said he was surprised by her honesty, especially about religion. She told the reporter that she couldn't pray to a God who allowed her 16 year-old son to die in a car crash. She said that if God wouldn't save her son, He certainly wouldn't save her from cancer.

The problem of evil, suffering, and death causes many people to stop believing in God, especially in a beneficent God. For millennia, humans who believe in God have wrestled with what theologians call theodicy, the existence of evil, suffering, and death within a context of belief in a God of love, and we have tried to make sense of the pain of life, while still believing in a God who cares and acts for our welfare.

There is no satisfactory human resolution of the problem, but there is the cross of Jesus Christ, in my view.

As a pastor, I am constantly dealing with tragedy of one kind or another: a sudden and unexplained death; the loss of mental functioning by someone who was once bright and creative; the unceasing suffering of people in Haiti.

And yet I believe. Sunday after Sunday, I confess my faith in God in the words of the Nicene Creed. I say I believe in a God who makes Himself known in love for humankind as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I believe in a God who does not hold Himself apart from humankind and our struggles, but who engages in them with us and aids us in our distress. I see this active, involved God most fully at work in the life, passion and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the cross, God suffers and dies, and on the third day, God, in Jesus, conquers all the evil, suffering, dying, death, tragedy--every enemy of humankind--in the resurrection.

We're Easter Christians, someone once observed, living in a Good Friday world. We face the harsh realities of life in this brutal, but also wonderful world, believing that God is with us and cares for us, that God identifies with us in our humanity in Jesus, that God is victorious over the Evil One, and that one day God's new creation will come to earth as it already exists in heaven, and then suffering and sighing, as Isaiah says, will be no more.

Now, I believe Elizabeth Edwards, who suffered mightily in many ways, knows life eternally in the Communion of Saints. Rest eternal grant to her, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercies of God rest in peace.

The church as the heart of a community

2010-11-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

In a seminary course on the history of the Anglican church in America, I became fascinated by the 19th century model of the urban church as a community center.

In Jesus' metaphors from the gospels, the church operated in the cities--especially in the presence of poverty, hunger, illness, lack of education--as: "salt," "light," "leaven"--functioning as an agent of transformation.

The church is the most important agent of transformation in society, I believe, because the church, our members united to Christ and to one another in baptism, carries on Christ's transformational work.

Transformation is healing, rescuing, redeeming, saving--making people and institutions whole again.

Last night, I saw that transformational work happening at Christ Episcopal Church.

We held our annual Thanksgiving Dinner for the community. Donya Ross, our Youth Minister, and her team of youth, parents, and others from the parish organized a huge and hearty meal and invited people from the neighborhoods around the church to the feast.

I don't know the final count of people we served, but it had to be upwards of 150. We would have had many more guests, were it not for cold, driving rain.

Even so, the parish hall was packed with single people, families, and lots of children. Most of our guests were living at or below the poverty level; some of them were homeless, arriving in the parish hall with their backpacks and bedrolls.

We also served some Missouri State University students who were natives of Dubai. They had responded to our invitations to the foreign students at MSU and Drury University. I sat at the table with them, making sure that they knew they were welcome in our church and to America.

I'm proud of our church members--young and old. They welcomed our guests, served their meals, sat and ate with them, cleared away the tables afterwards, and did the mammoth job of clean up afterwards.

Last night, I witnessed the Body of Christ in action.

And I saw our parish hall become a community center, where our needy neighbors knew they were welcome and where they found Christian hospitality, a healthy, substantial meal, and the abundant love of Jesus.

May it always be so.

Coffee. Christ. Compassion.

2010-10-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

After Penny's and my workout this morning, I indulged in one of my spiritual disciplines:

I went to my favorite coffee shop to enjoy a bold, black coffee and to read The New York Times.

I was content at my table until a man with a long, tangled beard came in the front door. He went to the merchandise displays, mumbled something to himself, and then sat down near me.

He started thumping the table with his hands and talking to himself. Very loudly.

No, he hadn't had a large coffee with six shots of espresso.

Something else was going on. He started to curse his partner, invisible to me, across the table from him.

By now, my contentment had changed to concern.

I'm sensitive to people with illnesses, especially mental illnesses. The ill should receive the very best care available, but I know that many of them don't because they can't afford it; they don't have insurance for doctor visits or hospital stays or money for medicines.

The man at the coffee shop might be one of these people. Or he might have medical insurance, which paid for treatment in the hospital and as an out-patient and for his medicines, but for some reason, he's stopped taking them; it happens a lot.

I didn't ask him about his situation. Uneasy because of his behavior, I left. I went outside, found a table, and finished my coffee and paper, glancing from time to time through the window to see where the man was and what he was doing.

At one point, I noticed him standing near the counter--a small cup of coffee in his hand, talking with someone. Not the invisible person this time, but one of the staff.

After the man left, I went inside and asked my friend who works there about the man, whether he'd had any trouble with him.

"I gave him a sample," my friend said. "And I talked with him a little. And he left."

"You handled that well," I told him, embarrassed at how I'd reacted to the man.

This morning, I responded to that mentally ill man with fear and suspicion. The next time, I want to respond as my friend did--and as Christ would--with compassion.

Learning from the Chilean miners

2010-10-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

With millions of people worldwide, I watched some of the 33 Chilean miners rescued after 69 days of being trapped deep within the earth. One by one, the miners were hoisted to the surface in a cage-like tube.

The miners survived because they cooperated with one another. They acted as a team. And their survival has something to teach us.

Above the surface, we humans are unable to get along, especially today in America amid one of the most venomous political campaign seasons in history. Whatever the office sought, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Party members, Independents throw themselves against one another like dogs in a pit savaging one another until only one is left alive.

We can do better. We deserve better. And voters must demand better.

What none of the candidates realizes is that whatever our political party, we're all fighting for survival against many threats, including: a persistent recession, massive income inequality, global warming, hatred and"isms" of all kinds, war.

Yes, we have different ideas about overcoming these threats, but differences needn't destroy us. Differences can be discussed, debated, refined into better policies to solve our problems. Moreover, differences shouldn't be exacerbated and exploited by cynical political manipulators for party advantage.

If we continue to attack one another, like pit bulls; if we continue to work against one another, thwarting solutions to national and global problems, then we're doomed. We'll die in the dark.

But if we work together for the common good--not for one party's domination of the others--then we'll survive and even thrive as a nation and people.

What worked underground for those miners will surely work above ground for all of us.

Lending a hand

2010-10-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

"Hey, can you give me a hand?" A giant man with a hurting knee was asking me to help him up the steps and out of the hot tub at the fitness center.

"Sure, " I said, and I used both hands to help him out.

He said thanks. And I felt good helping a fellow human being, even in this small, simple way.

Jesus is God's hand out to us in all our needs. He's God offering us a hand up and out of all that keeps us from the fullness of life.

And as the followers of Jesus, we're to be His hands outstretched to the world and to human beings in their needs.

That man's need at the fitness center was for help out of the hot tub.

But other needs confront us daily: a hungry person needs food, a lonely person needs a visit, a discouraged person needs a call or note of encouragement.

We might not hear the words, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" with our actual ears, but we certainly will hear those words, that cry for help, with our spiritual ears.

That's Christ in the other person's need, seeking our response.

In taking that man's hands in mine, I was taking Christ's hands in mine, and Christ was taking mine in His, and there was communion in that moment of compassion. And joy.

May you meet Christ, too, in answering His call, "Hey, can you give me a hand?"

Is this the best we can do?

2010-09-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

I've just read online that the US Senate has approved legislation requiring that the volume on TV commercials be turned down.

Finally.

I've been waiting for a lifetime for this dramatic, courageous act by one of our two legislative bodies. And now it's happened. I don't know what I'll do--how I'll celebrate.

But I'm cheering for how our 100 senators, Republicans and Democrats, "reached across the aisle," in Washington-speak, and did the nation's business and made this a better country for all people.

Our ears thank you.

And now that they've accomplished this major feat of lawmaking--and with House members ready to drop everything, including their plane tickets home for campaigning and return to their chamber, and with the president, pen in his left hand ready to sign this bill into law--perhaps our leaders will turn to other, less consequential matters.

Here are a few ideas:

How about legislation ensuring a clean planet for us, our children, and grandchildren? How about jobs for millions of unemployed Americans? How about spending as much for relief and recovery efforts in Pakistan and elsewhere as we spend on weapons for them?

And while our senators, representatives, and president are at it, how about showing you care less for your parties--and the Tea Party--and more for this country and all our citizens?

Now that would really be something. Something that would make this voter and a great many other voters proud of our government, because it's working, finally. Something that would really be worth a headline.

Christians? who burn Korans

2010-09-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, September 11, a self-described evangelical Christian pastor will lead his Florida congregation in burning copies of the Koran.

The pastor says the Koran is an evil book. He says the book burning will be a fitting memorial to the victims of the terrorist attacks on America nine years ago this September 11th.

I understand why Muslims are outraged. As a Christian, I am outraged also.

There is nothing evangelical or Christian about this minister and the people who support him. Their planned desecration of another faith tradition's sacred scriptures is a desecration of the Bible itself and is a sacrilege against Christ himself.

The word evangelical comes from a Greek word that means "good news."

Where is the good news in burning the Koran and adding to the fires of fear and hatred of Islam in America, fires that have been stoked already by other demagogues on radio and TV, in print, in their campaign speeches, and from pulpits?

How can it be good news that burning the Koran, according to the American general commanding allied forces in Afghanistan, will likely imperil his troops, will spread extremist views, and will encourage further violence.

Moreover, the pastor and his flock call themselves Christians, professing to follow Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. They don't follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

Jesus makes God known to human beings, and God is love. Jesus' every word and deed, especially his offering himself on the cross for the salvation of all, is done in love.

In loving others, Jesus acts for their well being and for the fullness of life in them. Never does he seek to condemn and destroy others, not even the Roman soldiers who crucify him.

We Christians, along with Jews and Muslims, and people of all faiths (and no faith) should speak out against the evil of bigotry, religious intolerance, and violence.

We should work for understanding among people of all faiths (and no faith), mutual respect, tolerance, and a better world for everyone.

(Through the Interfaith Alliance here in Springfield, we people of faith are loving one another and working for the good of this community. Our next meeting is Sunday at the Library Station on the north side at 3.30 pm.)

And we should pray for people who are consumed by evil, that God will save them, leading them from death to the fullness of life.

Such positive, constructive actions--not burning holy books--is a truly fitting memorial to the victims of September 11 and all the 9/lls that have happened since then in the name of religion.

Feeling low

2010-08-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

Today, the 142nd Psalm speaks to my heart.

The Psalmist, a struggler with faith, cries out to God, his refuge, from a low point in life. He seeks God's help.

Aren't there times when we share that low place with the psalmist?

We're brought low by the death of a loved one, by an illness or injury that persists despite treatment and prayer, by a disappointment that eats at the edges of our consciousness.

The psalmist looks up from his low place and sees God, His hand outstretched to him. God grasps him and lifts him from the pit to his loving presence, where the psalmist is comforted, strengthened, fortified with renewed hope.

My God, my refuge, lift me up from this low place to your presence where I may be still and know that you are God.

Author leaves the Christian faith

2010-08-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

American novelist Ann Rice, a Roman Catholic, is in the news, because she says she's "resigning" from Christianity.

She's disillusioned by Christians who fail to live according to Jesus' teachings and example.

It's a timeless criticism. Today, atheist authors Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are making fortunes pointing out the failures of people of all faiths and arguing from them that God doesn't exist.

Although Ms Rice doesn't make this logical and theological error, she makes another one. I believe she has focused too much attention on Jesus' followers and our failures and too little on our Savior and Lord.

Our faith in Christ doesn't make us perfect; it doesn't immunize us against failures.

Our faith in Christ does, however, give us a model for a fully human life, a life lived in love for God and for one's fellow human beings. We love because he first loved us and goes on loving us, even to the point of dying on the cross and rising again and living within us in the Holy Spirit.

And faith in Christ connects us to his power through the Holy Spirit for living into that life, not perfectly, to be sure, but imperfectly because we remain human beings. We believers constantly seek God's forgiveness for our failures and receive his forgiveness and grace to start again.

And in this lifetime process of discipleship, we Christians grow into full maturity in Christ, as the writer of Hebrews puts it, ultimately becoming grownups in Christ--not in this world, but in the world to come, while doing some good along the way.

While Ann Rice is resigning from the Christian faith, I'm rejoicing that multitudes of Christians are faithful to Christ. We're devoted to his continuing call to work, pray, and give for the spread of God's kingdom of justice, love, and peace on earth.

Yes, we make mistakes. We hurt people along the way. We sometimes make a mess of discipleship and even embarrass our Lord.

But we persevere in our faith in Christ, despite our failures (and those of others). We're like that seed planted in the good soil that Jesus talks about in one of the gospel parables, which roots and grows into fruitfulness.

I'm sorry that Ann Rice has left the faith. If only she had given the seed of Christ within her more time to grow into that harvest of the kingdom.

One of those holy moments

2010-07-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

Being a priest, I'm privileged to be with people in times of joy and sorrow and everything in between.

Yesterday, I visited a friend after the Sunday services. I took with me the sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood.

My friend's fighting a serious illness, which has limited his access to the world. Every time, we talk, I'm impressed by his courage, his positive spirit, and his faith in God.

I'm also moved by the love of his family and friends for him. They were gathered around him in the family living room yesterday. His friends included three college classmates. They'd heard he was ill, and they travelled from long distances to be with him, encouraging him with their presence, their jokes and banter, memories of life in college some thirty years ago.

I began the home Communion service, asking for a few moments of silence in which to remember God's presence and to give God thanks for the gift of friendship--both the friendship of others and the friendship of God for us. Friendships sustain us.

We said the prayers, and then I distributed the consecrated bread and wine--Christ's real presence for every person there.

The blessed bread and wine communicated Christ's grace or favor to each person amid his or her particular needs and struggles. I know my friend's needs, some of them anyway, but not those of the others who were there. But God knows those needs and meets them through the gift of his love in the sacrament.

We joined in a final prayer. I asked God for a miracle of healing for my friend and the destruction of the disease in his body. I prayed earnestly in faith for his full healing and for God's victory in his life.

As I said goodbye, I told my friend that I'd be back to visit. And I shall, for this is what I'm ordained to do--to be the physical and spiritual expression of God's healing presence to others. To be with God's beloved children in times of joy, sorrow, and everything in between.

Perhaps these visits are holy moments for others, even healing ones. They certainly are for me.

The real story behind Winter's Bone

2010-07-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

When I read the novel, Winter's Bone, a couple years ago, I found its southern realism hard to take.

There was something painful, like the throb of an abscessed tooth, in reading about the fictional lives of the Dolly family. They are a family caught up in poverty, meth cooking and selling, lawlessness, and death in the hollows of the Missouri Ozarks.

And when the film came out, I resisted going. Reading the novel was like pushing a plow through a rocky, stumpy field; and surely, I thought, seeing the film wouldn't be any easier.

But I went to see Winter's Bone the other day. And I'm glad I did.

It's superbly crafted: well-written, directed, acted, and filmed. (Local actress Beth Doman has a role in it.)

The film concentrates novelist Daniel Woodrell's story in a way the novel strings it out, as novels do, and delivers it to the viewer with the force of both barrels of the shotgun that 17 year-old heroine Ree totes to the door when a stranger knocks.

Winter's Bone shows the power of love--Ree's for her mentally impaired mother and her brother and sister. She sacrifices, suffers, and risks her life for the survival of her little family. She's all they have, in the absence of her father, a meth cook and seller who's jumped bail, disappeared into the hills, and imperiled the family home and property.

Ree fears she and her family will be living in the woods. So she goes in search of her father, resolved to produce the man himself to the bail bondsman or the evidence that he's dead.

At first I thought Winter's Bone, which made it to the screen with help from the Missouri Film Commission, didn't do justice to Missouri and the Ozarks, which I love.

But it does. It's not really a film about poverty, drugs, and lawlessness, but about the morality, the courage, the love of family embodied in young Ree Dolly.

It showed the true spirit and soul of the Ozarks.

Which way are you facing?

2010-06-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

In the film, "Please Give," Rebecca and her boyfriend Eugene take their grandmothers from their Mahnattan homes to the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York to see the changing leaves. By all accounts, the leaves are stunning this season.

After a few hours on the road, they find a spot and pull over. Everyone piles out of the car, including the two hobbling grandmothers, to look at the trees.

Rebecca, Eugene, and his grandmother stand by the roadside, in silence, enraptured by the mountains and the trees--a rainbow of reds, golds, yellows, and greens.

Meanwhile, Rebecca's grandmother is turned in the opposite direction, looking at a patch of trees whose skinny limbs stretch forth empty and gray. It looks like winter, not autumn. But it's all the woman can see.

Or will allow herself to see. Rebecca's grandmother is alone and bitter. Her only child, a daughter, had killed herself when Rebecca and her sister were young, and the gradmother reared the girls herself.

This tragic loss possessed the woman and robbed her of a life of joy, love, and beauty.

Rebecca's grandmother focuses only on death, her daughter's and her own one day soon. It's all she sees.

In the metaphor of the film, she looks on the empty trees, which presage the coming winter, not on the vivid fall colors of an upstate autumn.

In life, we're looking either toward the barren or the beautiful, toward the tragic and painful or the good and redemptive, toward death or life. We're either looking toward Christ, who is life, or away from him.

And the way we're facing makes all the difference in what our lives will be.

It's time to wash the oil off our hands

2010-06-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

President Obama didn't say it in his speech last night, but he should have:

We all have oil on our hands.

All of us who drive vehicles, fly on airplanes, use petroleum-based produces are responsible for the catastrophic oil leak and spread in the Gulf of Mexico, and the consequent environmental and economic damage, because we're all dependent on seemingly unlimited and relatively cheap oil.

Because we're responsible for the devastation of the gulf, if only indirectly, we're also responsible for the prevention of future disasters. We must become more faithful in our stewardship of creation and insist upon greater supervision of and, where warranted, punishment of corporations that act so cavalierly with respect to our environment.

Not all damage can be contained or repaired. Once an oil-feathered pelican dies, it stays dead.

We also must take other action, including: supporting a gas tax, the revenue from which will help fund research into and development of alternative, clean forms of energy; reducing our driving, hopping on bicycles instead of into the front seats of our cars to run those errands; and trading in our monster SUVs for energy-efficient vehicles. Both Penny and I enjoy our hybrid cars, especially the savings on gas and the satisfaction of knowing we're doing a small part to care for creation.

And we must pressure our elected officials, urging them to shift funds from road and highway repair, improvement, and expansion to the laying of light rails for trains (Kansas City, I'm told, is doing just this; St. Louis already has.); expanding bus service, including to outlying areas, and building more bike lanes and trails.

No, the president didn't say it in his 18-minute address to the nation last night, but he should have said it:

We all have oil on our hands, and it's time we wash it off by acting in new, bold ,and even sacrificial ways for the preservation of God's gift of creation.

What if?

2010-06-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

Reading Matthew 14.13-21 during Morning Prayer today, I wondered:

What if the Kingdom of God that Jesus inaugurates is a radically new consciousness and experience?

Jesus' life and ministry reveal this kingdom, which is unlike any of the world's kingdoms.

Today, in the feeding of the multitude, he shows that this new consciousness and experience are not about scarcity, but about plenitude. Jesus takes virtually nothing--just a small bit of food--and turns it into a feast, with ample leftovers.

This feeding miracle reveals a larger and deeper reality, one that is hitherto hidden and which is discovered only by those who live that life that Jesus lives as God's son.

We enter this new kingdom consciousness and experience only by faith; and in doing so, we find what's always been there: the fullness of life, God's gift to us.

By faith alone, what if becomes what is.

A different Memorial Day

2010-05-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

At church today, we prayed for those lost in war, this being Memorial Day weekend.

And the Sunday New York Times reports that 1,000 young American men and women have been killed in the war in Afghanistan thus far. Tens of thousands of civilians have also died in that war.

Meanwhile, we're still at war in Iraq.

Despite the administration's setting dates for withdrawals from both wars, I fear that we're locked in endless wars, with more to follow, perhaps the next one being on the Korean Peninsula.
God must surely get weary of my our prayers for those lost in war, whose number rises every year.

And God must surely wonder why we humans disobey his law of love and fail to outlaw war and violence and work together to eliminate the conditions that lead to war; namely, injustice, poverty, oppression.

It's good that we pray for the war dead, hold memorial events to them, decorate their graves.

Best of all, however, would be national and international resolve to say: No more war ever. No more war dead. Ever. And to mean it and act upon it.

Now that would be a fitting memorial to the dead.

That new thing

2010-05-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's easy to become discouraged about the daunting challenges we face as the church: scarce resources for ministry, conflict among members, lack of direction sometimes, the obsession with survival.

And yet, I find hope in a fresh movement of God the Holy Spirit, who is renewing the church, Christ's body at work in service to the world.

That movement is called Emergent Christianity, which was the subject of a recent clergy continuing education conference in the Diocese of West Missouri.

Phyllis Tickle, a nationally known writer and speaker, described Emergent Christianity, which has arisen in response to rapid changes in the world and cultures.

In response to dizzying and disorienting change, many people are returning to the ancient traditions and worship of the church. They're deep connections with God, which enable them to live with faith, hope, joy, and purpose in the present.

Emergent Christianity is one of the works of Holy Spirit, who is God at work in the church and the world today.

I want to learn more about Emergent Christianity and how it might inform Christ Church and our proclamation of the Good News of God's love in Christ to young people. Many 18 to 25 year-olds are seeking the Divine, looking for community, and longing for lives of significance.

This summer, I plan to look carefully at Emergent Christianity.

Penny and I will again spend time at the Iona Community, which is located on an island off the west coast of Scotland.

Even before that first sociologist of religion coined the term Emergent Christianity, Iona was such a community.

It was started during the 1930s by Church of Scotland minister and WWI war hero George MacLeod.

MacLeod, who trained in law at Oxford University, had had a profound conversion experience to Christ during WWI. As a renewed Christian (he had been baptised an Anglican), he was deeply influenced by the ancient traditions of monasticism and Orthodoxy.

After and war, he went to theological college and then served traditional Presbyterian congregations in Scotland for a time.

He later went to Iona and, with other ministers and lay people, began to repair the ancient Benedictine abbey. Slowly, they created a new and dynamic Christian community there.

MacLeod was controversial in his day because of his radical vision of the church and stands on social and political issues. During WW II, for instance, he was an ardent pacifist, which brought the wrath of his countrymen.

George MacLeod is now with the saints in heaven.

And here on earth, the Iona Community is still thriving. With communities in Glasgow and elsewhere, Iona is expressing the life of the Spirit in stirring worship, including beautiful music, prayer and study, loving fellowship, youth work, and the vigorous pursuit of social justice locally and globally.

The Spirit is alive in the church, which gives me hope. More and more people are coming to the Lord, finding new life in him, and sharing his life and love in ministry and mission.

Thanks be to God for those fresh expressions of God among us, including Emergent Christianity.

From weeping to rejoicing

2010-05-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Jesus weeps.

Read or listen to the news and the stories about churches that squabble and splinter over their differences.

In our own Episcopal Church, we’ve divided over prayer book revision, over women in ordained ministry, over gay bishops.

Yes, Jesus weeps

And he also prays, as in John’s gospel account of our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer.

He’s facing his passion and death, and he prays with and for his followers that day in Jerusalem, and in all times and places,

He prays that we’ll be one just as he and his father are one in love for one another. Theirs is a relationship of mutual love.

He says that when his followers love one another, we will be united to God the Father and the Son and with one another.

And love—that’s the only important thing—is shown by his suffering, death, and resurrection for the salvation of all, even for those who persecute and crucify him.

Father may they be one as you and I are one.

Sadly, though, too many Christians today, including in our own denomination, are more interested in being right on issues than right in our relationship with God and our fellow Christians through love.

Jesus weeps not because we have differences; we’re human, and we’ll always disagree. But he weeps because we let differences amputate his earthly Body, the church.

Today, we dismember Christ’s body over gay bishops, but tomorrow it will be something else unless we find another way to be the church.

We can. We must. We are at Christ Episcopal Church.

A few Saturdays ago, more than 60 people, mostly Episcopalians, including 15 from Christ Church, spent the day with Dr. Peter Browning of Drury University. Dr. Browning is professor of religion and ethics there.

Dr. Browning led a workshop on homosexuality and the church, and he called it a “collaborative” approach.

We gathered in the parish hall at round tables--people with different views on the subject and different experiences. And we did something different. We didn’t debate or dispute.

No, we listened to Dr. Browning deal thoroughly and objectively with the arguments on homosexuality and the church, pro and con.

He looked at the Biblical passages often cited in the debate, along with scientific data and studies. We heard gay and straight people, in video testimonials, describe their experiences of being Christian.

And we talked—and listened—at our tables. Ours was a conversation. We acknowledged differences, sought understanding, and looked for what unites us—the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—and ways we could work together for his kingdom of love.

We were collaborating.

This workshop was not about changing minds, but changing hearts—not about right and wrong, but about right relationships that were grounded in active, self-giving love for all people.

And for those five hours in the parish hall, we were the answer to Jesus’ prayer for unity within his earthly body.

The important thing is not being right in our opinions, or theology, or interpretation of the Bible, but right in our love of God and love for one another.

And when we are right about the right thing, Jesus rejoices.

Making the adjustment

2010-05-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

"Ahh," said a barista friend of mine at Starbucks as she stretched out her back and got ready for the next order.

She said she'd been hurting, but now was feeling better. She'd been to her chiropractor for an adjustment. Her neck and spine were now aligned properly.

If you've ever hurt yourself and then received treatment from a therapist, you know how good you feel, perhaps even immediately.

Worship is like that. On Sundays, we go to church for a weekly adjustment--not a physical one, but a spiritual one.

Monday through Saturday, we're barraged by voices that call out: Do more. Be more. Acquire more.

We're battered by the stresses of work, school, home, problems of all kinds.

We bend and break before temptations and are burdened by sin and guilt.

Like the medieval Italian poet Dante, writing in his Divine Comedy, we soon find ourselves lost in a dark wood. We're hurting psychologically, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

It's time for an adjustment, which God provides in corporate worship.

When we worship God, we take a break from the craziness, the emptiness, and the pressures of daily living, and we make time for the praise and adoration of the one true God.

We reject the deadly idols of the world and embrace the One who alone gives us the fullness of life.

In the Holy Eucharist, we turn from the internal and external noise and enter into the silence in which the Spirit speaks to us.

We listen to music and anthems and sing hymns, which uplift us and unite our hearts with God.

We pray in the ancient words of The Book of Common Prayer and in our own words and join ourselves to God.

In the Holy Scriptures and sermon, when we pay attention and eagerly seek him, we hear God address us personally with the Word that is meant for us, and our souls quicken with new life.

And in the Holy Communion, as we kneel before God and reach out to him and for him, we receive the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The sacrament is not just bread and wine, but it's also Christ giving himself to us. It's his real presence, which meets our needs and heals our hurts.

When we worship God regularly, we're fully alive. We overflow with hope, joy--and that precious, although scarce reality in these anxious times: Christ's peace that passes all understanding.

Worship is our weekly adjustment, aligning us with God and keeping us healthy in our relationships with him and one another.

It's that "ahh" experience to start our week.

Graduation is only the beginning

2010-05-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

My nephew Connor is being graduated next weekend from Southern Methodist University, and today I sent him a card with my congratulations.

Among the treasures of avuncular wisdom I shared with him is that he make his education a lifelong enterprise, regarding his bachelor's degree in economics as only the beginning of learning.

In 1976 when I was graduated from university, I thought I knew nearly everything, or at least more than those who hadn't been blessed enough to go to college or university. How wrong I was. I quickly learned that I was ignorant--that I had so much yet to learn, and even when I had learned it, I would have much more to learn. And learn. And learn.

Learning is my passion, or at least one of them, and not just learning about history, literature, economics, and other secular disciplines, but also about the Christian faith.

I have so much to learn about the risen and living Jesus Christ and my life in relationship to him and to my fellow believers and to this world for which Jesus died.

In John's Gospel, Jesus promises his followers that he will send them the Holy Spirit, who will lead them into all truth. I often pray, "Come Holy Spirit." Just that. Nothing more.

And I trust that God the Holy Spirit will lead me into a deeper knowledge and experience of God and myself and others and the kingdom.

When I look back on my graduation from university, I see it was just the beginning of my education, as Connor's graduation from SMU will be just the beginning for his. Or so I hope and pray it wil be.

Baptism and confirmation and ordination--graduations of a kind--were just beginnings for me, for God the Holy Spirit is still teaching me, leading me into the fullness of truth.

Confrontation in love

2010-04-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

This week, a friend wrote me a caring and confrontive electronic message.

First, some background: for nearly 16 years as rector of Christ Episcopal Church, I've urged people to address me directly when something's troubling them, something that might even be criticial of me.

Some do.

Yes, it's painful to hear directly from people I've angered, offended, or hurt, but the alternative--people withdrawing from me in silence--is more painful. And that withdrawal is damaging to the relationship.

Jesus says that when something is troubling us, we should take it to our brother or sister, presenting it in love and working for reconciliation in the relationship.

When this friend wrote me, she was doing just that.

Here's what troubled her:

During the announcements on Sunday, I had announced that Christ Episcopal Church this Saturday would host Dr. Peter Browning of Drury University for a Hardie Lecture Series on sexual orientation. (Dr. Browning will look at the topic from a sociological, not a theological, perspective.)

I spoke about differences in sexual orientation and the imporance of understanding and caring for people.

My friend was troubled by my emphasis on difference and reminded me that all people are children of God and loved by God.

I sent her a reply, thanking her for expressing herself to me and telling her I was sorry that I had offended her. I pledged greater sensitivity in future.

As a priest and pastor, I seek to be a loving, caring, and compassionate presence to all people, communicating that God loves all of us, and that we're to love all people.

I'm grateful to this friend for her honesty and for reminding me of the nature of Christian community, which is grounded in the love of God made known in Christ Jesus.

As two hymns put it, "We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord." And "In Christ, there is no East or West, no North or South."

Singing our alleluias

2010-04-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

In responding to the question, “What interests you most about the spiritual life?” Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says, “I find myself coming back again and again to the meaning of ‘alleluia’.” (“The Christian Century,” April 6, 2010)

The Latin, “Alleluia,” via Greek, derives from the Hebrew, “Hallelujah,” which means, “Praise Ye Yahweh” or “Praise God.”

After the penitential season of Lent, we again use alleluia in our liturgy, starting with the Great Alleluia at the Easter Vigil; we then use alleluia all year long in worship until Ash Wednesday and the start of another Lenten season.

Alleluia. Praise God.

We praise God because of who God is: the God of infinite and unconditional love; what God has done: created and saved us from evil, sin, and death in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ; and for what God promises us: to be with us always through Christ in this world and in the world to come.

This Easter Season, then, let us shout out our alleluias, for that simple but soaring word, as the Archbishop of Canterbury hints in his response to the question, sums up the Good News of God's unfailing love of all his children.

Alleluia. Christ is risen. And with him, we are risen. We are his alleluia people.

What makes this day Good Friday?

2010-04-02T06:14:00.000-07:00

Today, Christians worldwide remember Jesus' passion and death in the Good Friday Liturgy. Our Lord's last day will be a dark and terrible one--one that will move us to tears.

In our churches, God's Spirit will draw us into Jesus' suffering and death through the readings, prayers, somber hymnody and music, and silence. We experience for ourselves--in our heads and hearts--Jesus' journey to the depths of human estrangement from God and his consecrating of that hellish nothingness with God's loving, life-giving presence.

In doing so, Jesus reconciles us in our farthest place from God with him. Now, the devil, sin, suffering, and death itself no longer have power over us--not after Jesus' passion and death. And not after the third day and his resurrection from the grave.

Therefore,Good Friday is good, because God, in Jesus, makes it good with his identification with us, even at our worst and in the worst of our circumstances.

Good Friday reminds us of how great God's love for us is in Jesus Christ, that the Son of God would suffer and die for us to save us from an eternity without the loving companionship of God.

Today in prayer, I will thank Jesus for all he did for me. And I will do something else, inspired by a friend's email to me: I will do something for Jesus in gratitude for what he did for me on the cross. I will appreciate his grace and will express his grace in action.

May God bless this Friday with his goodness.

An invitation

2010-03-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

Penny told me about a fellow student who had arrived in the painting studio happy. Why her happiness? Someone had invited her to church. That person, she said, thought enough of her and enough of the church to invite her to Sunday worship.

Sadly, many of us Christians are hesitant about inviting people to our churches. I'm not sure why. Perhaps we don't want to be thought pushy. Or we don't want to be told no. Or --could it be?--we don't want others to think of us as evangelicals, as if that were a bad thing.

Thank God, Mary Magdalene, the first witness to the resurrection, was eagerly evangelical, telling the disciples, "I have seen the Lord."

In our hesitancy, we fail in our baptismal call to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ--to tell others, in our own words, how our relationship with him helps us overcome fear, stress, suffering and live in confidence, hope, joy.

As a consequence, people who are hungry for Christ and for a connection with him through the church--sometimes without even knowing it--go away unfed, and our churches are poorer for their absence.

No wonder many mainline churches are declining in membership, including the Episcopal Church, while evangelical churches--whose members are excited and articulate about the saving power of Jesus Christ and of his life-changing love--are exploding?

This Holy Week, why not let someone know that you care about him or her and that you care about your church? Invite that person to attend worship with you this Sunday, Easter Sunday, properly called the the Sunday of the Resurrection.

Together, you'll hear the proclamation of the Good News in word, sacrament, and fellowship:
God raises Jesus from the grave, defeats death, and opens up life to us in its fullness now and forever.

That's the Good News that Mary Magdalene shares with the disciples, news that disciples have shared with others for more than two-thousand years, news that Christ calls us--evangelicals, all--to share with others.

And that sharing can begin with a simple invitation to church this Sunday, which says: "I care about Christ. I care about my church. And I care about you."

Uplugged

2010-03-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

A friend told me of a recent trip out of town with a companion. All the way up to their destination and all the way back, the companion, mobile phone in hand, texted people.

From what I hear and see--including drivers thumbing the keys on their mobile phones while their cars are in motion--my friend's companion is a typical--and sad--captive in this hyper-connected 21st century.

Increasingly, the I-Phone and the Black Berry are as essential for many people as an oxygen tank and tube are for a person with emphysema.

Many regard the mobile as a lifeline to the larger world, which can be good and necessary. But it can also be a way to ignore others. It can distract the user from life that's happening right now. And some users might even think that it's the one thing keeping them from disappearing into silence and nothingness.

I text; therefore, I am.

I read recently of a rabbi in Brooklyn who knows the dangers of hyper-connectivity and who's doing something about it.

He's calling on the members of his congregation to observe an Unplugged Sabbath, one day a week, Saturday for Jews, to turn off mobile phones (and what about laptops like this one I'm using?) and observe a day of rest and worship of God, the original intention of God's instituting the sabbath, according to Genesis.

God took a break, the Bible says, and so why don't we humans do the same thing? For a day, be it Saturday or Sunday, the Christian sabbath, let's unplug from the satellite network (and that primitive land line). Shut down the home internet. Go silent and still.

And with hands freed from slavery to our mobiles--and weary thumbs relaxed and rested for a full 24 hours--we can them fold them in prayer to God and lift them up in praise of him who gives life, joy, peace.

Ah, yes, peace. Remember it?

Pub crawls and calls

2010-03-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

It's St. Patrick's Day.

In a few hours, downtown Springfield will fill up with green-clad visitors, making their boozy processions from pub to pub to pub....which will be good news for the bars, taverns, and restaurants, and the city's sales tax revenue, but bad news to the revelers tomorrow morning.

Ouch! My aching head.

I wonder what St. Patrick would think about what his feast day has become.

Being zealous in prayer--he writes in his Confessions about how he'd pray a hundred times or more a night as a teenage shepherd/slave--and being passionate about the Good News of God's love in Jesus Christ, he'd rise from knee-bent prayer, I imagine, and take to the wet and dreary streets of center city tonight.

As he did on the green, sheep-trodden hills and in the poor villages of Ireland during the 5th century, he'd share with anyone who'd listen not a harangue about demon alcohol (including green beer), but a passionate and compassionate message about the Lord of Love.

He'd tell of the God who loves, forgives, welcomes, and blesses his beloved with eternal, overflowing life--life that foams--up, up, up--until it runs over, like that beer stein under the tap at the local pub.

Blessed Patrick knew God's love personally, thanks to his rich devotional life, and God's love overflowed from inside him in the proclamation of the Good News and in deeds of love of the Irish people.

Patrick is known in church history as "the apostle to the Irish." He spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and converted not only the five great Irish chieftans, but also the whole island. In doing so, as God's representative, he drove out evil, sin, and death, but probably not snakes.

At my Confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church as a grade-schooler, I chose Patrick's name as my special confirmation name--I thought the snake legend was cool; and this saint of the church has inspired me ever since.

Patrick has made me want to draw closer and closer to God in prayer and worsip and study and to reach out to others with the Good News of God who loves us all and in whose love we find life in all its richness.

St. Patrick's feast day, for me, doesn't celebrate the pub crawl, but a saint of prayer and proclamation.

And if you're making the pub crawl tonight, enjoy your revelry--but be safe--and how about raising a pint to the saint and answering God's call, telling someone about how you've known the God of love?

A little lectio this Lent

2010-03-04T12:27:00.000-08:00

In our Lenten class at church on Wednesday, we continued our discussion of a book called "Longing for God: the Seven Paths of Christian Devotion" by Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe.

We looked at the ancient practice of lectio divina, or divine reading, which is also a subject in the book.

This meditative reading of Holy Scripture is an excellent way of receiving God the Holy Spirit's needed direction for one's life. It also allows the Spirit to continue forming our souls in the image of Jesus Christ.

With my lectio--which, alas, is occasional, not daily--I'll take a passage of Scripture from the readings for the Daily Office in "The Book of Common Prayer," read it over carefully a time or two, and then open my journal and start writing.

Often, writing enables me to receive the Word, God's Living Presence, which feeds my soul just as the Holy Eucharist feeds my soul with the Body and Blood of the Risen Christ.

Tuesday, I read Mark 4. 1-20, the familiar parable of the sower and the seed. I thought, "Oh, that one again. Is there really anything here for me?"Yes, there was, as I found in my writing. Here's what I wrote, my lectio:

"I hear the Spirit saying that God sows the seed, which is his word for the life of us, but that seed only takes root, grows, thrives in us when we put our faith in God the Sower. Then, there is growth. Then there is life in us that is unimaginable--beyond expectation.

"And faith is not only that consent of our wills--that, 'Yes, Lord, I believe....'--but it is also that, 'Yes, Lord, Lord I believe and now here is how I'm going to behave as a consequence.' I'm going to sow that seed of your word in what I say and do, that the whole world might burst forth with the abundance of your kingdom, your presence."

With holy reading, let the Spirit move over the words and within you, bringing forth meaning and the life God intends for you.

This Lent, try a little lectio for the good of your soul.

The hope called Yunus

2010-03-04T07:24:00.000-08:00

Penny came home from a lecture on Tuesday night full of excitement.

The lecture, before a capacity crowd at Hammons Hall, was delivered by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Dr. Yunus is an economist and university lecturer who pioneered microcredit in his home country of Bangladesh.

Penny said Dr. Yunus was more a storyteller than lecturer. He talked about discovering that poor people in a village close to his university were in debt to local money lenders, with little hope of ever escaping. He learned that the sum total of the villagers' indebtedness was $27. He lent them the money, which they eventually repaid.

And thus began his experience with microcredit. Dr. Yunus went on to set up a microcredit bank, the Grammen Bank, which has opened branches in the developing world and in the United States.

Microlenders make small loans, usually a few hundred dollars, to establish or expand businesses. Microcredit lifts people out of poverty and promotes economic growth and a higher standard of living.

A few years ago, "60 Minutes"profiled Dr. Yunus. It told the story of a man who used a microloan to buy a telephone and install a phone line at his small shop. This phone linked the villagers and their family members scattered around the world. The man provided a service, increased his revenues, and repaid his loan.

In his lecture here, Dr. Yunus also spoke about "social business," whereby a company applies its capital and know-how, creating products that solve social problems and help people, especially the poor.

In one country, he said, poor people were developing foot diseases because they couldn't afford shoes. They had to go without them, which exposed their bare feet to injury and infections.

Dr. Yunus approached Adidas with the problem, and the company responded. It built one plant and then others to manufacture low-cost shoes, making footwear affordable for the poor. Likely,
Adidas made only a small profit on the shoes, but it did earn a huge, social profit: the satisfaction that it had done something to help the poor live better lives.

What excites me about Dr. Yunus is that he's a man of action. He isn't letting despair keep him from solving problems. He's showing that human ingenuity, compassion, and the resolve to push past "No, we can't" to "Yes, we can" are powerful drivers for creating a better world.

Yes, we humans face huge problems of global pollution and climate warming, rampant disease and famine, too few schools and jobs, political corruption and oppression, war and violence, and more. And, yes, some people say these problems are insoluble, that it's better to wait for Jesus to return and take care of everything for us.

And they're right. Partially. Jesus, the Christ, will return and will take care of everything for us--every time we act in faith and hope, letting him work in and through us for that new creation.

Thank God for Dr. Mohammad Yunus and leaders like him. They're showing me the way and inspiring me to act.

C.S.A. stands for more than the Confederate States of America

2010-02-24T08:59:00.000-08:00

Community Supported Agriculture is another meaning of the acronym, C.S.A.

Last Thursday afternoon, I participated online in Trinity Institute's continuing discussion of ways that parishes can help create a more ethical economy.

One way is by supporting local farmers.

My CSA person is Dale Burton. On Saturdays from 8 am until noon, you'll find Dale at the Farmer's Market on the southeast corner of the Battlefield Mall, Springfield. He and his family operate a farm near Billings, MO and raise chickens, wheat, cattle, and more.

Twice a month, Penny and I pick up our order of healthy, economical food items from Dale--a young, hardworking, happy man. It's worth the trip just to go out and chat with him. I like to know the person who is producing my food. And a chat with Dale always lifts my spirits.

For a little more than $40 a month, we get free-range chicken breasts, homemade wheat bread (it makes delicious breakfast toast, spread with butter and local blueberry preserves. Yum.), eggs, and sometimes steaks. It's all pesticide and antibiotic free, and we can tase the difference.

Trinity Institute's presenter last week said that ordinary American consumers could move this country toward a more sustainable and more ethical economy by patronizing local farmers through Community Supported Agriculture.

Watch the films "Food Inc." and "Fresh," and you'll know why that's important.

Last Saturday when I picked up by bi-montly order, I asked Dale whether it would be possible for parishioners from Christ Episcopal Church, Springfield, to join his CSA program as a group, picking up our food from him twice a month at church. He said yes, with a smile and lots of enthusiasm. Saturday afternoons would be a possibility for pickups.

Is anyone interested in supporting CSA and being part of the change that America needs: healthier, locally produced agricultural products and a more ethical, even Christian economy? Just let me know. Post your response here or email me at gdisgood@sbcglobal.net. I'll see what we can organize.

No limits to God's love or to ours

2010-02-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, I preached the sermon at the Absalom Jones Celebration Eucharist at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Kansas City.

The Racial Reconciliation Committee of St. Andrew's and St. Augustine's Episcopal Churches, Kansas City, invited me to preach.

I was was the first white pastor or priest to be invited to preach at this annual commemoration of the first African-American ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Jones's ordination took place in 18th Century America, when slavery was still firmly entrenched, including in the North. Here is the sermon, "No limits to Love," which is based on John 15.12-15

You’ve probably seen the sportswear imprinted with the slogan, “No Fear.” This is a fit group. Your own cycling or running jerseys might say just that.

Well, as worthy as that slogan is, I’d like to see a very different one printed on shirts, on banners, even on the signs outside our Episcopal Churches.

Instead of “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You,” our signs should say something weightier:

How about? “No Limits to Love.”

After all, isn’t that how Jesus loves?

In the gospel reading today, God the Son commands his followers to love one another as I love you. He says perfect love is this: that a person is willing to lay down his or her life for friends.

We’re to love as Jesus loves, working actively for the wellbeing of the others, and Jesus loves with no limits.

Look at him:

He never sends anyone to the back of the bus. Never restricts the right to vote. Never segregates schools and lunch counters. Never tells people of color, “You can’t sit in that pew. Sit in that balcony.”

Jesus loves with no limits--even when it means the whip, spit in the eye, a crown of thorns, death on the cross.

Supremely, on the cross Jesus shows us love that has no limits. There, he offers his life for us, while we were yet sinners. And in doing so sets us free from slavery to the Devil, our sins, eternal death.

Jesus’ cross is our Emancipation Proclamation. It is our freedom papers.

The Good News, in Jesus, is that God’s love is not limited to the few, but is lavished on all: people of every color; gays and straights and transgendered persons; rich and poor; Republicans and Democrats; Barak Obama and Sarah Palin.

The saint whose life we celebrate in this Eucharist today, blessed Absalom Jones, an African American slave, who worked for years to buy his and his wife’s freedom-- Absalom Jones knew the gospel and lived it.

And when he saw God’s love limited, he acted.

One Sunday, a white man asked Jones to sit in the balcony of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, where whites and blacks had worshiped in the same pews side by side from Sunday to Sunday.

Jones and a fellow Christian, an African-American named Richard Allin, said, “No.”
They left St. George’s, followed by all the other blacks of the congregation.

Richard Allin remembered, “…we all went out of the church in a body, and they were no longer plagued by us” (PBS, “Africans in America, Part 3: Narrative: The Black Church.”).

In 1787, Jones and Allin organized the Free African Society. They built a congregation and, eventually, a church.

And with the support of Bishop White of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, their church was admitted to the diocese as St. Thomas African Episcopal Church, Philadelphia.

Jones said, “We are now encouraged through the grace and divine assistance of the friends and (of) God opening the hearts of our white friends and brethren…to arise out of the dust… and throw off that servile fear, (which) the habit of oppression and bondage trained us in” (PBS, “Africans in America”).

Jones, first as a deacon and then as the first black priest of the Episcopal Church, served St Thomas—preaching, teaching, organizing, pastoring his people. And speaking out against slavery and every other limit to God’s love, until his death in 1818.

May we do the same in our own time, as the followers of Jesus who carry on his ministry, actively working for the good of the other, whoever the other is.

And inspired by Absalom Jones, and empowered by the Holy Spirit given to us in Baptism, we must act when we see love limited by a narrowness of vision that says, “Care for needy people here, not in Haiti.”

We must act when we see love limited by lack of education, too few jobs, denial of health care; limited by illness or disability; limited by gender, sexual orientation, age or race.
We must act whenever we see a limit to God’s love and God’s children pushed out of the pews and into the balconies of church and society.

We must act and, yes, even suffer taunts and spit in the eye; the club, the fire hose, the snarling dogs; the loneliness of jail; the cruel death of the cross.

After all, that’s the way Jesus lived, the way Absalom Jones lived, the way those Freedom Riders and marchers lived in the American South of the 1960s.

And that’s the way we will live as Jesus’ followers, keeping his great commandment and loving all others and bearing the fruits of love: a world where “No limits to love” is not a slogan but a reality.

Amen

Adoration

2010-02-15T12:41:00.000-08:00

Penny and I recently stopped by the Kemper Museum of Modern Art in Kansas City for a visit. I wandered around, noticing two women sitting on a bench in a gallery. They sat silently before a painting, a landscape of farm land in Iowa somewhere. It was a large piece, perhaps 12 feet long and four feet wide, a panorama.

I walked on, peeking into that particular gallery again and again. The women were still there, each time I looked, still staring at the painting. Perhaps they were Iowa expatriates in Kansas City and missed the rural countryside, and this painting was their way of visiting home.

Or perhaps something else was going on between them and that painting.

Perhaps it was adoration. They were sitting still and in silence before beauty and drinking it in with their eyes-- appreciating and delighting in it.

That's what adoration is--adoration also being a form of prayer, according to The Book of Common Prayer. When we adore God in prayer, we simply appreciate God for being God in all of his goodness, beauty, wonder. Adoration is being in the presence of the Holy One; it's a moment of oneness with him.

That oneness can happen while looking at a painting in an art gallery, a sunset over Table Rock Lake, your grandchildren asleep, or the altar at church, adorned with sprays of flowers on the last Sunday before Lent.

In Lent, take time just to sit still before God, wherever you see him revealed. Be quiet. Adore God. And know that God adores you.

Cage fighting at church?

2010-02-02T13:53:00.001-08:00

The New York Times today reports that some evangelical Christian churches are reaching out to young men (and women?) who practice martial arts.

No, that's not news.

But this is news: these churches, the report notes, are offering Christian martial arts practitioners the opportunity to put some punch into their worship, a kick into their relationship with Christ.

They're offering Christian cage fighting as a worship experience.

So, instead of singing "Amazing Grace," worshipers are shouting, "Knock him out. Hit him harder. Kill him." All for Christ's sake.

Jesus heard those shouts of "Kill him" on the cross. He saw people delight in his suffering and death.

And he repudiated violence in his living and teaching. Remember? Jesus preached, "Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the humble. Blessed are the peacemakers."

What would Jesus think of "Christian" and "cage fighting" placed side by side?

Now, I'm all in favor of reaching out with Christ to all people, including martial arts practitioners. But the Christ I know and believe in, the Christ I invite people to trust themselves to is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

He is the God of gentleness and compassion, the God who makes himself known in weakness and humility--not in power. He's the God who dies on the cross for his opponents, not the god who nails his opponents and then struts around in celebration, hands upraised in Rocky-Balboa fashion.

So, Christians, evangelical and otherwise: go on reaching out to non-Christians with praise bands and cappuccino and blue jean worship and hipster clergy, but not with cage fighting, too. Please anything but that.

Thinking about economics--with the Archbishop of Canterbury

2010-02-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (pictured with me here), spent three days reflecting on the nature of faith and economics at this year's Trinity Institute at Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, in New York City.

Father Jonathan and I attended, and both of us met Dr. Williams and chatted with him. The archbishop, a poet, and I talked about poetry, not economics.

This was the 40th national theological conference hosted by Trinity Church. It took place at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, the center of world finance, in the historic nave of Trinity Church. Alexander Hamilton, one of the founders of the Republic and father of our banking system, was a member of Trinity and is buried in the church's graveyard.

During the conference, we participants reflected on how our Christian faith could help build an ethical economy.

Dr. Williams, who holds a DPhil.,,in theology and who taught at Oxford and Cambridge, said that faith in God and the values of the gospels, such as compassion and generosity, should contribute to economic decision-making, not just considerations of profit and loss.

He reminded us that the word "economy" comes from the Greek word for "household" and commended the model of a household for economic planning and action. The household " is where life is lived in community," he said. "Good housekeeping seeks common well being, starting with stability (and) balancing the needs of all and maintaining relationships."

Economists, together with people of faith should ask "What is the long-term well being we seek?" What kind of home do we want to build together? Dr. Williams asked, citing a phrase of the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom.

Theology, Dr.Williams said, contributes two things to ethical economics. It challenges the mystery of economics and proposes a model for human life together. And theology tells us what people are made to be--beings with value and of virtue.

"What makes us human," he said, "are gift and love."

And if you follow economics as closely as I do--I used to be a banker--you know that economists who speak about gift and love are rare, but people of faith, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the people at this year's Trinity Institute, who talk about economics and ethics are becoming more abundant.

And we're actively discussing ways to build an ethical economy in which people are valued primarily because we're created in the image of God, and not because we're simply sources of productivity and profit.

Praise for the people of Christ Episcopal Church, among other churches, for their response to Haiti

2010-01-26T06:46:00.001-08:00

I realize that I'm writing a lot here about Haiti, because that country and its people are in the news and in my heart.

That's one of the things about going to Haiti--meeting the people, seeing the smiling faces and hearing the laughter of the little ones, worshiping with people of such strong and vital faith in God--you never leave Haiti; Haiti never leaves you. You carry it with you, close to you.

So, I'll go on writing about Haiti and other topics, perhaps even about this year's Trinity Institute at Trinity Wall Street, New York City. I'm in the City now, after arriving late last night following a six hour delay at the airport in Chicago.

I'm looking forward to hearing what Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has to say about economics and justice.

In a just world, Haiti would not have been in the shape it was before the earthquake: the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

As one of the baptised, I'm working for a just world. Follow the link below and hear my sermon from Sunday on, you guessed it, Haiti. http://homepage.mac.com/asorenso/.Public/012410c.mp3

Bishop Duracin of Haiti writes

2010-01-26T06:02:00.000-08:00

People wonder about the situation, especially for our fellow Episcopalians in Haiti. Here is a letter from the Bishop of Haiti. Bishop Duracin writes to Robert W. Radke, President of Episcopal Relief and Development, a ministry of our church. Please keep Bishop Duracin, Father Fritz Valdema (Pere Val), and his wife Carmel in your prayers. They are all doing heroic and faithful work shepherding their flock.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our LordJesus Christ.
I am writing to you from the tent city we have set upbehind the rubble of College Ste. Pierre, our marvelous seniorsecondary school that is no more. As you know, we have gatheredapproximately 3,000 people here alone. Across the land, the Diocese ofHaiti has set up at least 21 refugee camps, caring for more than23,000 people.
In this letter, I wish to make clear to the Diocese ofHaiti, to Episcopal Relief and Development and to all of our partnersthat Episcopal Relief and Development is the official agency of theDiocese of Haiti and that we are partners working hand-in-hand inHaiti’s relief and recovery efforts.
I also am announcing in this letter that I am appointingThe Rev. Lauren R. Stanley, Appointed Missionary of The EpiscopalChurch, to work directly with ERD on my behalf. I am asking allpartners in The Episcopal Church to communicate directly with Rev.Stanley, so as to keep communications with the Diocese of Haiti open.Rev. Stanley is to communicate and work with ERD on my behalf.
In addition, I am asking that all of our partners in thePresbyterian Church USA work directly with ERD, with Rev. Stanley asthe central communications person. PCUSA has worked with us for manyyears, and we are deeply grateful for their compassion and theircommitment to the people of Haiti.
We in the Diocese of Haiti have a vision and a plan forthis relief and recovery effort. We know the situation on the ground,we are directing emergency relief to those who need it most, and wealready are making plans and moving forward to help our people. Sincethe earthquake struck, we have been and will continue to work closelywith your two representatives here, Ms. Katie Mears and Ms. KirstenMuth. I have complete confidence in you and your agency.
Finally, I wish to make it plain: I know that many of ourpartners wish to come to Haiti right now to help. Please tell themthat unless they are certified professionals in relief and recovery,they must wait. We will need them in the months and years to come, but at this point, it is too dangerous and too much of a burden for ourpeople to have mission teams here. Please tell our partners, the people of The Episcopal Church, thepeople of the United States and indeed the people of the world that wein Haiti are immensely grateful for their prayers, their support andtheir generosity. This is a desperate time in Haiti; we have lost so much. But we still have the most important asset, the people of God,and we are working continuously to take care of them.
I hope that this letter will help all of us work together to help God’s beloved people in Haiti. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me. If others have questions or concerns, please askthem to contact you or to work directly with Rev. Stanley.
Faithfully,Mgr. Jean Zaché DuracinEvêque d'Haïti

A report on my time in Haiti--miracles accomplished, miracles needed

2010-01-18T08:55:00.000-08:00

I saw God working miracles in Haiti during my week there with our mission team, miracles in the people, miracles in me. And now Haiti needs another, a greater miracle, following the earthquake of last Tuesday.

In my sermon from yesterday, which you can listen to by going to the link below, I talk about my week in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and I appeal to people to be part of God's newest and greatest miracle for the people.

http://homepage.mac.com/asorenso/.Public/011710c.mp3

Here's one way you can help Haiti, in addition to prayer

2010-01-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

I have just learned that our Haiti partners in ministry, Father Fritz Valdema, and his wife Carmel and their family are safe. They slept outside last night. They still have little news of church members.

Knowing that Penny and I and our mission team have recently returned from Haiti, people are writing and calling, asking how they can help Haiti following the horrific earthquakes and aftershocks of Tuesday, January 10.

Today, Penny and I sent a check to Episcopal Relief and Development, The Episcopal Church Center, 815 Second Ave., New York, NY, 10017.

Dave and Alice Williams, Episcopal Relief and Development coordinators for the Diocese of West Missouri, write:

"Episcopal Relief and Development is well established in Haiti and will respond immediately to the needs of the Haitian people.

"Through our program partner, the Diocese of Haiti, we already have people on the ground, and we already have contacts with local authorities and agencies to quickly provide aid and assistance to the people.

"ERD doesn't have to organize a team or send people into the country or establish aid centers; we're already there!

"Please help by contributing to ERD...; 92 cents of every dollar given through ERD will go directly to the people of Haiti.

"Checks with "Haiti Relief" in the memo field will go directly to the support of the Haitian recovery efforts.

"...We will be having a conference call tomorrow evening with ERD New York and the ERD Network and if anything new or different comes from that, we'll let you know immediately...."

Thank you for your prayers and other expressions of concern for the people of Haiti.

A first reflection on my week in Haiti

2010-01-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

I've seen poverty in the United States, but nothing compares to the poverty I saw last week in Haiti.

Penny and I spent January 2 through January 8 there as part of a Christ Episcopal Church mission team. Christ Church teams have served there once or twice a year since 1996.

I had heard that Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. And then I saw that reality for myself.

Even in the capital of Port-au-Prince, the majority of Haitians live in shacks made of boards and corrugated metal or, for the better off, in squat houses made of cinder blocks; they have no indoor plumbing or reliable electricity (the power goes off in the late afternoon); little or no clean water for drinking and washing; no trash pickup; little or no access to medical or dental care; and no regular work, the unemployment rate exceeding 50 percent.

For most Haitian, every day is a right for survival.

Blue-helmeted, heavily armed UN troops rumble down the streets in trucks or drive by in jeeps or stand, guarding intersections. This was my first visit to a country whose peace and security are the responsibility of the United Nations's troops and police.

Haiti, our neighbor just to the south of Florida, is a tragedy.

And, yet, I returned from my week there full of hope and joy and with a deepened faith in Christ and a renewed commitment to the work of the church. The church, including our own, is making a profound difference for the good there.

I'll reflect more about my time in Haiti in future columns here.

For now, take a look at the photos that Penny and I took during our mission week. Go to:

http://christepiscopal2010haitimissiont.shutterfly.com/

And please pray for the people of Haiti.

Christ Church: the wedding photographer's dream

2009-12-30T14:34:00.000-08:00

As I write this column in my church office, I'm glancing outside at a bride and her bridesmaids, together with the groom and his groomsmen. They're shivering in the damp, gray cold of this fading year while a photographer takes pictures of them in the beautiful cloisters of Christ Episcopal Church.

And now, the wedding party has jumped back into their stretch limousine and sped away toward downtown. Perhaps the bride and groom are off to be married at a restaurant or other venue or, if they've already had the ceremony, to enjoy a lavish reception.

This young couple will begin the new year as husband and wife. They'll face the future with one another and their love. As they left the church, they were smiling, laughing, and full of excitement. I said a prayer for them, whoever they are, asking God to bless them.

And the next time I see a bride and groom having pictures taken in our cloisters, I'll leave my office and invite them to come to church on Sunday. Christ Episcopal Church is far more than a building and a lovely backdrop for wedding photos; we're also a lively community of faith.

May God bless you and your loved ones in 2010.

Is our good news really good?

2009-12-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

Over early morning coffee the other day, a Christian friend and I were talking about evangelism.

The average Episcopalian shutters when the word evangelism comes up, as if he's just eaten a lemon, which is too bad, because it's a good, New Testament word. It sums up what was happening in the church of the apostles after Jesus' resurrection.

In its denotation, evangelism is sharing the good news of God's loving and saving presence among us in Jesus. Those first evangelists knew the risen Christ and his love, which changed their lives. Naturally, they wanted to share that life and love with others. As they did, the church grew and spread throughout the world.

And yet in its connotation, evangelism means a preacher standing on a street corner or in a studio in front of a TV camera, haranguing people about God, who'll hurl them into hell unless they repent.

My friend calls this "turn or burn" evangelism.

There's no good news in this message for me--nothing that would draw me to Christ if I didn't know him. Indeed, I'd flee from that preacher. I'd change the TV channel.

And that's exactly what many people are doing today and what they'll continue to do, unless we Christians understand what evangelism really is and how to practice it as part of our baptismal ministry.

At a conference last year, I heard the speaker talk about how the 23rd Psalm expressed the Good News of God's love in Jesus. He invited us to reflect on how the Lord had been our shepherd, how God had fed us and led us to water, how God had seen us through the valley of the shadow of the death.

When Christians know God's salvation directly in our lives--and I have known it again and again--then we know the Good News, and that's news worth sharing with others, because it's real and relevant to others who are seeking love, joy, hope, peace.

As the church moves from the Christmas celebration of Christ's birth, we Christians enter the season of Epiphany, which is that time of God's shining forth the light of his great love for all people in Jesus Christ.

I'm thinking about how I've met Christ's love in my life, how his light's saved me in my darkness, and I'm praying for opportunities to share this good news with others.

Not on a street corner or in front of a TV camera, but with someone over coffee or lunch or even in a column like this.

The imitation of Christ

2009-12-22T10:01:00.000-08:00

The other night, my grand daughter June Elizabeth and her Grammy were going to make Christmas sugar cookies.

Penny pulled out the cutting board from the counter and placed June's little footstool in front of it so she could reach the surface.

"Ken," Penny said. "Come look."

June was standing standing on the footstool, making the sign of the cross, and babbling the words, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

At the cutting board, two-year-old June was imitating me as I stand at the beautiful wooden altar at Christ Church, as I make the sign of the cross, and as I say those holy words that priests have said for ages as we celebrate Christ's offering of himself for the salvation of all.

"Perhaps we'll have another priest in the family," I said to Penny.

Children learn by imitating. June Elizabeth and her sister, Christa Marie, are learning about worship--and faith in Christ--by being part of this church. This is their family of faith.

They see what others do at church and elsewhere, how we're all trying to live the Jesus life, call it, and they imitate us in doing so.

That's how June and Christa are learning; it's how we all learn to follow Christ.

The Real Deficit

2009-12-17T11:44:00.000-08:00

Many church boards, including vestries of Episcopal churches, are approving budgets this month. And they're often doing so in the face of reduced giving because of the Great Recession.

Attend a church board meeting, and you're likely to hear a lot of anxiety being expressed.

Looking at deficits, many boards panic and start reducing or eliminating ministries--those programs that make God's love known to others. Boards start focusing on maintaining the institution at the expense of the church's mission, the only reason the church exists.

And when maintenance becomes the church's reason for being, that church begins to wither and die, like that fig tree in the gospels that does not bear fruit. Who wants to be part of a church that is retrenching--dying?

And God weeps.

Facing deficits, other church boards trust God to provide. These boards are grounded in the story of God's saving love--how God provided for the Jews in the wilderness during those 40 days; how God provided for those early Christians, giving them resources, including courage, to spread the Good News of God's savior Jesus to the whole world; and how God met the needs of that particular congregation throughout its history.

And those church boards act, approving budgets with deficits, sometimes without being sure how they'll fund all their ministries and pursue their vision of mission.

And God smiles.

This past week, my church's vestry met to approve the church's ministry budget for 2010. After much discussion, and a lot of anxiety, the vestry decided to approve a deficit budget.
This was the second time in as many years that we did so. And a few people expressed the fear that we were adopting a dangerous precedent. "When will it stop?" one person asked.

Last year, the vestry also approved a deficit budget, trusting that God would provide. And he did. We conserved money by being careful about our spending, while not neglecting our ministries or reducing staff; we saw a big increase in our non-pledge giving. And we anticipate ending 2009 with a budget surplus.

As I told the vestry this week, I believe that God will do for us in 2010 what he did for us this year: he will provide for us, abundantly. I trust God and his word.

In the gospels, Jesus promises that when we focus not on our fears, but on our faith in God and do the work of mission, expanding the Kingdom of God, God meets our needs.

When we take God at his word and act, as Jesus did, we demonstrate our trust in him and discover that he provides. We needn't worry about anything, because we're his beloved. Worry is for unbelievers, not for us.

Yes, church boards need to be concerned about budgets and deficits; we must be good stewards of God's gifts, making every dollar work fully in mission.

But the most important deficit about which church boards need to be concerned is a deficit in faith. That's the deficit that matters the most, because that's the only deficit that destroys the church.

And then God really weeps.

But with faith in God, who does the impossible, even raise Jesus from the dead, we can do the impossible. We can be the church: a faithful, not fearful, body of follower's doing the Lord's work.

The privilege of priesthood

2009-12-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

I got a call last night that I was needed at the hospital ER. A woman was close to death. She and her family needed a priest. So, without hesitation, I went, praying for as I drove to the hospital. In the patient's room, her family was gathered around her bed, while nurses and other medical personnel tended to her. The woman's sister was stroking her arm and head and whispering comforting words to her, urging her to let go "and go toward the light." Her mother and father were with her, in tears of loving presence. Surely, this woman knew she was surrounded by love. I anointed her for healing. And God answered our prayers in the way that was best for her; he granted her that ultimate healing, which comes in death. The ER doctor, who was kind and gentle, said that she "had passed" and that the time had come to turn off the ventilator and let her go. And so the machine was shut off. Now, this woman is with God--no longer suffering, but alive as never before in our eternal spiritual family, the Communion of Saints. As I said my goodbyes to the family, a nurse came over to me, her arms out to me. And we hugged. She thank you. "Thank you for being here." Nothing like her response has ever happened to me before. It felt good--not just because of the hug, but good because I knew I was where God wanted me and doing what God called me to do, making his love known in a time of profound need. This was a holy moment. I am reminded what a privilege it is to be a priest and to share in times of great joy and great sadness with God's people.

Taking a bite out of hunger

2009-11-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

I'm proud of my church. The people of Christ Episcopal Church know Jesus and make his love known through their service.

Last night, the youth group, together with our young adults group sponsored the annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner. The parish hall was packed with people. According to Youth Minister Donya Newport, 120 people were served heaping, steaming plates of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Yum, it was good.

Of the 120, 80 or more were neighbors from around the church, where poverty is abundant. Our guests are among the 49 million Americans who are hungry today, a statistic reported this week by the New York Times.

In the midst of this Great Recession, the number of hungry Americans, including children, is rising. Hunger in America is at its highest in 14 years.

However, Christ Episcopal Church, along with many other churches in Springfield are heeding Jesus' command: we're feeding the hungry.

Last night's Community Thanksgiving Dinner was one way. At Christ Church, we're also filling grocery sacks each week of food for Crosslines, the Council of Churches' ministry to the hungry.

(Crosslines is mounting a special appeal right now. If you contribute money to the council's ministry, your gift will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $40,000, thanks to a grant from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Please join me in making a Thanksgiving gift to Crosslines this year.)

With the vestry's enthusiastic support--and personal commitment of many vestry members to take part--Christ Church will participate in the Kids Against Hunger ministry, starting in January. Church volunteers will gather at the ministry's warehouse one Saturday a month and fill bags with special protein meals and other items, which will then be distributed to the hungry locally and globally.

Moreover, church members volunteer weekly at the Well of Life Ministry, which serves as an emergency food pantry downtown. Other volunteers fill bags with food and distribute them to the hungry through Crosslines. And the staff regularly gives out sack lunches to the hungry who come to the church seeking food. These lunches are prepared by our Outreach Committee.

I'm proud of the people of Christ church for the many ways they show compassion to the hungry. They're a living example of the life of service that Jesus lived and goes on living through us.

A change of attitude toward change

2009-11-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

I walked into Starbucks today at 6.15 am as I do nearly every morning after my workout.

And right away, I noticed: Everything had been changed: there were new tables, including one huge one. Bars had put in with bar stools. New lighting installed. The walls are being repainted.
(Fortunately, my friends who work there were still behind the counter.)

What was going on? I wondered. Whatever it was, I thought, I didn't like it. For an instant, I thought I'd go back to Panera tomorrow morning.

Now, I understand what people in the church, particularly the Episcopal Church, are experiencing. The church is being refurnished and redecorated, theologically and in other ways. The Episcopal Church isn't what it used to be. And we feel unsettled.

We want the church to be that unchanging institution in our lives. We crave the familiar words of that worship we grew up with, be it the 1928 Prayer Book, even the 1979 Prayer Book. We might say we liked it when Episcopal priests were men, not also women.

And female bishops? Well, let's not talk about that or about the gay bishop of New Hampshire or the the blessing of same gender unions. What will be next?

I understand. I really do. We humans want everything to stay the same. It's secure that way and safe. And predictable, like sitting in the same pew at the Sunday Eucharist. We can always count on our place being available.

But it's also unrealistic. Everything changes. Nothing stays the same--in families, at work, in government and politics (We now have an African-American president), in our neighborhoods and cities, in the church.

Darwin found that only a species that adapts and evolves survives; otherwise, it dies.

So it is with institutions, including the church. I remember a debate I had with a retired Member of Parliament when I was in England one summer--this debate occurred in his home, not on the floor of Commons--and I said, "Why not let women be priests, even bishops? Your Prime Minister is a woman, after all?"

"Yes, but that's different," he said, unable to tell me exactly how.

The Episcopal Church is changing, because the world we serve is changing. And we either adapt, seeking to minister to others in Christ's name, or we cling to the past and perish in irrelevance and insignificance.

So, I'll go back to Starbucks tomorrow morning. I'll mutter for awhile about the changes in furnishings and decor. But I'll get used to the changes and, if my experience with change is any measure, I'll even come to like them one day.

And, of course, I won't want anything to change.

Prayer brings healing

2009-11-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

God always speaks in Holy Scriptures, and sometimes I listen closely enough to hear what he says.

Today, I sat in my office praying Morning Prayer and reading from Matthew's gospel. God spoke to me clearly.

In Matthew 15.29 and following, Jesus is on a mountain in Galilee. Crowds bring him "the maimed, the lame, the blind, the dumb, and many others." They put them at his feet, and he heals them.

As a priest, I care spiritually for people who are struggling with illness, pain, loss, grief, and more. They seek help from God for themselves or for others.

The Good News is that God hears our pleas for help and comes to our aid in Jesus. In him, God ministers to human beings out of the abundance of his compassion. He does so in Galilee. He does so here and now.

When we pray for God to heal others, we're placing them at God's feet, and God heals them, today, just as he does that day on the mountain side through his son Jesus Christ.

And if there aren't instant results to your prayers for healing, don't despair and give up on God.

Prayer takes effort, just as it takes effort, and a lot of it, for those crowds carrying the ill and broken up the mountain and then laying them at Jesus' feet. So persevere.

God heals everyone we place at his feet.

Fort Hood: the continuing tragedy?

2009-11-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

We prayed at church yesterday for the victims of the attack at Fort Hood, remembering to God's care those who died there, their grieving families and friends, and the wounded recovering in hospital.

As I reflect on this tragedy, I'm awed by the courage of the police officer who stopped the attacker and by the soldiers who risked their lives shielding victims from bullets, getting people to safety, taking care of the wounded--all the while risking their own lives. We have great people in law enforcement and in our military.

I hope the Fort Hood tragedy is not magnified in the coming days.

The alleged attacker is a Muslim, an Army major, and a psychiatrist who counselled soldiers after their combat service. No one is sure why he went on this rampage, although some in the media, especially radio and TV demagogues, are speculating that this man was motivated by religion, that this attack was his own personal jihad.

Nonsense. The attacker committed these terrible acts because he was mentally ill, not because he was a Muslim.

Americans who are outraged by this attack, instead of clinging to the illusion that it's the result of religion, should realize that it's the result of a society that worships guns, glorfies violence, and makes it easier and easier for everyone, including deranged people, to buy guns. Should gun attacks really surprise us anymore?

Today, I emailed a Muslim colleague who participates in the Springfield Interfaith Alliance, which includes other Muslims, together with Jews and Christians. I told her of my prayers for her faith community here and nationwide. I promised my support, told her that I was uriging my church to remain focused on our work for interfaith understanding and partnership for furthering God's work.

I hope this tragedy will stop in Fort Hood and not radiate into the rest of American, in waves of further prejudice, hatred, and violence against Muslims. That would be a greater tragedy still and one that we could have prevented.

A happy Anglican writes

2009-10-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

I read in today's New York Times that the Bishop of Rome, also called Pope Benedict, is inviting disaffected Anglican and Episcopal clergy, churches, and even dioceses to come home to Rome.

The new Vatican policy allows Anglicans to continue worshiping in their own parish churches, using The Book of Common Prayer--no longer as Anglican Christians, but as Roman Catholic ones.

Why would some Anglicans convert from Canterbury, the geographic home of the Anglican Communion, to Rome?

According to news reports, Anglicans who oppose the ordination of women and a gay-friendly Episcopal Church and Church of England would be more at home in the Roman Catholic Church, because, officially, the church opposes the ordination of women and the affirmation of gay and lesbian Christians. (I know Roman priests, however, whose views on these and other matters differ from those of Benedict.)

For those who feel that God the Holy Spirit is calling them out of the Anglican Communion and into the Roman one, then may God be with them and bless them in their continuing spiritual journeys. Our unity as one body in Christ may come only in the world to come.

A former Roman Catholic, I have found my spiritual home in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. Of course, I give God thanks for the spiritual formation I received in my birth church. There, I first heard the gospel of God's love in Jesus and grew in that life-long love.

Now, as an Episcopalian, I am part of a community of faithful Christians who read the Bible and interpret it with the aid of reason and tradition. I worship according to a beautiful, living liturgy that connects me with God through word and sacrament.

I belong to a church that struggles, often awkwardly and publicly, to relate the faith to a changing world with deep spiritual hungers. I am a member of a church that welcomes the gifts of all people for ministry and whose governance is shared by clergy and laity.

Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple once described Anglicanism as "catholicism with freedom."

The English Reformation blessed Anglicans with the gift of freedom from the concentration of power in person and one office. I am glad to be free, bound only to Christ, my Lord and Savior.

Up on a roof

2009-10-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite James Taylor songs is "Up on the Roof." He sings about how the roof is his place to get away from everyone and everything, including his troubles.

I was full of troubles as I read Morning Prayer today. I found Psalm 18.1-20 helpful, reminding me that God was my "strength...my stronghold, my crag, and my haven...." God "rescued me because he delighted in me."

I was still brooding, though, even after my prayers. I had many cares--my gutters, among them. They were overflowing with leaves, sticks, gumballs. There were little trees growing out of them. When downpours came, the gutters looked like mini Niagara Falls. And inside the house, ominous brown spots were spreading on the bedroom ceiling, signaling a leaky roof.

Hearing nothing from the roofer or the gutter man I had called, I decided to go up on the roof. But I didn't have a ladder. So, I found a tree near the house and climbed it. I felt like a 10 year-old again.

On the roof, as I moved slowly above the gutters, I had to focus my mind on not falling, while scooping out the black oozy detritus from the gutters and throwing it to the ground. There was no room in my mind for any other thoughts.

An hour later, I climbed back down the tree. I had cleared my guttters of all that gunk, and my mind of all that funk. Distraction is good for the mind and soul.

Find your roof today.

Priests have doubts, too

2009-10-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

I met doubt on Friday at the movie theatre.

It was my day off, and as I sometimes do, I went to the movies, seeing The Invention of Lying, a movie written and directed by Ricky Gervais, famous for the original British version of The Office.

In the movie, Gervais plays Mark, a screenwriter who lives in a world where everyone tells the truth, however hurtful and, at times, crude it might be.

Mark's mother is dying and is terrified of death. Mark, to console her, tells her not to be afraid of death, but to believe that she's going to a place we might recognize as heaven. The afterlife, Mark tells her, is perfect. Everyone is happy all the time. You're with all the people you've ever loved and lost. And it's eternal.

When the word gets out about this wonderful place beyond time and about"the big man in the sky," who supposedly represents God, Mark becomes a spiritual master to the multitudes. He ends up issuing the 10 spiritual teachings of the Big Man, delivering them not on the mount, but on the steps of his apartment building. Instead of stone tablets, the teachings are written on the backs of two pizza boxes.

The Invention of Lying is a humorous attack on religion, a kind of comic version of God Isn't Great or The God Delusion, popular atheistic works that caricature God and religious people. At times, I admit, I laughed.

But I also felt uneasy, doubtful. What if the whole notion of God, of heaven, of the Communion of Saints, and of all other truths of the faith is purely a human invention meant to lessen our pain or to scare us into being good?

I thought about that question most of the weekend. It's a serious question, if one raised by a silly movie.

I took my doubt to God early on Sunday morning. (On Sundays, I get up at 4.45 am or earlier and get ready for church, spending about an hour in prayer, Bible study, meditation, writing. ) In my journal, I wrote about my doubts. I offered them to God, and the thought occurred to me:

Although Mark makes up the Big Man and the afterlife--they arise from his imagination--does God not speak to us through our thoughts and imagination? What if Mark, who thought he was lying, was really telling his dying mother the truth about what awaited her when she passed from this life?

I ended my time with God, praying a phrase from the gospels: Lord, I believe. Help me with my unbelief.

I've had periods of doubt during my spiritual journey: when I was challenged by my seminary classes, when I was watching my father die of cancer and undergoing horrible suffering, when a family member was struggling with post traumatic stress syndrome.

In times of doubt, however, I have still had faith. Faith enough to tell God my doubts. Faith enough to pray about my doubts.

And God answered me, I believe, not always in words, but always in grace--that strong current of loving assurance that rose from the depths and saved me from drowning in doubt and despair.
I will go on having my doubts, sometimes elicited by serious events, sometimes silly ones like watching The Invention of Lying. But without doubt, there is no need for faith in God.

I'm learning not to deny doubt and to run from it, but to embrace it and to offer it to God for His use and my good.

Lord, I believe. Help me with my unbelief.

The question of happiness

2009-09-29T11:48:00.001-07:00

A church member responded to my invitation: What one question would you ask of God? He wants to know: God, how do I attain happiness?

I remember something my professor of French at the University of Louisville said on the subject. Happiness was something I was after. He said if one sets out to attain happiness, then one will fail to find it. That wise counsel, however, did not dissuade me from seeking.

Eventually, I discovered what my professor had found a long time earlier: happiness is a consequence, not the goal.

What is the goal?

As a Christian, I make my goal Christ. I learn from my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in His Word to me--which I hear in Holy Scriptures, sometimes in poetry and other literature, in prayer, in silence, in the words of others--and to which I respond in obedience.

My goal in life is faithfulness to Christ, with God's help. Nothing else.

When I follow Christ as fully as I can here, then I'm happy. Not that I'm always happy. There are days when I feel down, frustrated, troubled--all those human things.

But I keep trying to be faithful to Christ, and quietly and often surprisingly, He shows me glimpses of happiness. I not only see them, but also feel them. This is heaven.

In the gospels, a rich young man asks Jesus how he can attain everlasting life, which is far better than earlthly happiness. Jesus says, Go and sell all you have and come follow me. And, as the story goes, the young man leaves downcast. He's rich and wants to stay that way.

For this rich young man, something is more important to him than God, who is revealed in Jesus; it's his wealth; he's rich materially, but poor spiritually. And not until he puts God first will he know eternal life. I like to think he does just that.

Real happiness-call it eternal life-comes only through God and my relationship with Him. When I learn from Jesus Christ, living for Him and loving others in His name, I'm most fully alive. And as happy as I can be in this world.

And I know it's Christ who makes me that way.

Christian discipleship and giving

2009-09-28T09:36:00.001-07:00

One of the most difficult things a priest preaches is the spiritual and material importance of giving--spiritual because giving, like prayer, worship, study, and service, moves us in God's direction; and material, because it takes the resources of money and people for the church to do its healing work.

Preaching on giving is challenging and painful at times because it confronts us on what we most value or where our ultimate trust lies. We often become angry and defensive when someone challenges our idols. Jesus encountered plenty of this, and it led to his death. Perhaps this is why preachers are thankful that stewardship sermons tend to be once a year. Any more would raise the threat level to red.

In this acquisitive, consumer culture, the attitude is: I made this money. It's mine. Don't tell me what to do with it. And we celebrate it. Many Americans today cherish freedom with no responsiblity for anything or anyone else.

I see this "me and mine" attitude not only in the church--although not at my own church, happily--but also in society, specifically in the anti-taxation movement in America.

We no longer believe that all we have comes from God, ultimately, and to God we are accountable for all He's given us: our time, out talent, and, yes, our treasure.

Many church people want worship, Christian education for our children, pastoral care in times of need. Citizens (do we understand what that concept means? ) want good streets, safe neighborhoods, excellent schools that will launch our children into Ivy League schools. But we don't want to pay for any of it. We want someone else to pay the bills.

What we miss because of our selfishness is connection. When we return to God a portion of His gifts to us in the form of our tithes and offerings, we are more related to Him, who is our Ultimate Concern, and to Christ's Body, which is God the Holy Spirit alive and at work in the world. And when we pay our taxes, we are more related to society in the promotion of its well-being; this is a part of our civic responsiblity.

To hear my sermon from yesterday, go to this link, which my colleague Dr. Allin Sorenson created: http://homepage.mac.com/asorenso/.Public/92709c.mp3

Q & A

2009-09-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

Many people think that Christians have all the answers, but I'm hearing from Christians who have more questions than answers. They had been contacting me even before my last column here, inviting questions.

But now, I'm really hearing from them. From you.

One person asks of God, "Do you really exist? And if so, in what form?"

I spent years looking for God, but most intensely during my junior and senior years at the University of Louisville. I thought I'd find God by taking philosophy and religion courses and by talking with religous people, including the chaplains at the university's Ecumenical Center.

I didn't find God in my classes, or in my reading for class and outside of class, although I found some great minds and great souls, including Augustine, Soren Kierkegaard, Pascal, Thomas Merton, among others, including the Roman Catholic and Episcopal chaplains.

I learned about their searching for God. And finding Him:

Paschal uses just one word to describe meeting God: "Fire." Augustine, that towering mind of fifth century north Africa, heard God say of the Bible before him, "Take up and read," and Augustine met God there in the Word; Merton found God in the beauty of church architecture in France and Italy and later in the quiet of his monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in my home state of Kentucky.

If they found God, I reasoned, then perhaps I could as well. And so I continued my search.

And I found Him. God revealed Himself to me when I prayed to Him in earnest and in surrender. God came to me in a tidal wave of love. His love washed over me. Drowned me. Carried me away in wonder, thanksgiving, and joy.

That prayer of mine was a prayer of faith, trust that God was. And is. And always will be.

As Paul says somewhere in First Corinthians, we won't find God with our minds and by our clever reasoning, which is what I suppose I was doing: looking for those convincing arguments to prove to me and my mind that God was real.

We find God only by faith.

That's when God says, Here I am. I've been here all along. Waiting for you.

So, everyone, keep asking questions. It's a sign you're seeking God. And if you're seeking, you'll find Him.

What's your question?

2009-09-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

Tom convinced me: it's time to do it.

Last week, I spent three days at our annual clergy conference at Conception Abbey in northern Missouri. It's a beautiful, holy, and peaceful spot.

Diocesan clergy heard from the Rev. Tom Ehrich, an Episcopal priest who used to be a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Now, among other ministries, Tom is a syndicated columnist and church and business consultant.

He told us how he asked 1000 people a question:

What one question would you like to ask God?

He heard from virtually everyone he contacted and responded, answering each question as best as he could.

For some time now, I've thought about doing something similar here. Tom convinced me it was time to act.

So, here's my invitation: If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

Email me your question at gdisgood@sbcglobal.net or post it here at the end of this column.

Of course, I can't promise you that God will answer your question directly, but He might respond indirectly through me.

I pledge that I'll think about your question. I'll pray about it; I'll ask God to answer your question through me. And then I (God?) will respond to you.

Oh, yes, here's my question to God:

How's everything going to turn out for us?

I'll start thinking, praying, and listening to God right now.

Do you hear me?

2009-09-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

I like mornings at the table with Penny. We eat our breakfast, read the papers, talk.

Actually, Penny will tell you: I'm usually the one doing the talking.

But not today.

Today, I just listened as she talked about friendship and the possible loss of a friend who might move away in response to a fresh call from God.

I listened and heard not just the verbal content--words--but also the emotional content--feelings: grief, sadness, even fear--fear that she'd never find as dear a friend as the one she might lose.

To listen, not just to Penny, but also to others, I have to shut up, of course, and that's hard for me to do as a voluble person. I also have to resist rushing in and and trying to fix the situation, in this case Penny's sad feelings about her friend.

I remember a sermon that my colleague Father Jonathan Frazier preached at Christ Episcopal Church. He mentioned our Stephen Ministry, which is a lay pastoral care ministry. It involves a high degree of training of lay ministers and careful supervision.

Jonathan said that in Stephen Ministry, people learn that "listening is doing something." Hearing that, I felt freed from my natural tendency to be a fixer (I still need help with my being a talker) and at liberty then to be a listener.

Listening is not only something I seek to do with people, but also something I attempt to do with God, using my quiet time every morning for that purpose. If I'm so busy telling God things, then God has no opportunity to tell me things, be it words of guidance, comfort, forgiveness, peace.

So, today, I'm learning to listen--to my wife, to my friends and colleagues, to my parishioners, to my God.

God wants to know; others want to know: Ken, do you hear me? I do. If I'm listening.

Mercy triumphs

2009-09-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's reading from the Epistle of James, I heard a sentence for the first time. Oh, I've probably heard it before, but I was ready, really open, to hearing it as if for the first time. Say that I heard this phrase with my heart.

"Mercy triumphs over judgment," James writes to Christians.

Today, what we need is a Christianity not of judgment--so many churches preach God's judgment on this or that sin, on this or that group, on this or that theology--but a Christianity of mercy.

Jesus, in the words of Eugene Peterson, is God with us in the here and now and is the embodiment of the mercy of God. Those who are vulnerable, weak, poor, on the edges of society and not at the center receive mercy from the Lord, never judgment.

The only people Jesus judges, and rightly, are the know-it-alls, the got-it-all-figured outs, the I'm-better-than-you-ares: the Pharisees of then; the Pharisees of now.

One place for this new Christianity of mercy to be expressed is in our own churches and toward our own members, some of whom are different from us for a lot of reasons.

Take those in our churches, for instance, who are suffering from Asperger's Syndrome.

Yesterday afternoon, Penny and I saw Adam, an excellent new film showing at the Moxie. It's about a young electronics engineer, Adam, played by Hugh Dancy, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

As one character in the film explains it, Asperger's is on the "autism spectrum." There's nothing dangerous or scary about it or the people diagnosed with it.

"Aspys," as Adam describes fellow sufferers, are often highly intelligent, but they have difficulty communicating with others and understanding what people are communicating to them. They're prone to talk endlessly on topics of interest to them. As a consequence, they're awkward in social settings, including the workplace, school, in their communities of faith.

When I meet a person who's very different from me, I can judge that person, even think that person a "freak," a word that Adam applies to himself as the way "neurologically typicals" see him.

Or I can practice the Christianity of mercy. I can get to know that person, come to understand who he or she is, and accept that person as a fellow child of God, deserving all my love, but none of my judgment.

Judgmentalism, now that's a truly scary syndrome, and there's nothing Christian about it.

Why catastrophize?

2009-09-03T08:32:00.001-07:00

Listening to the debate on health care reform, I hear many doomsday predictions: "death panels," Medicare cuts for seniors, government-funded abortions, illegal immigrants overwhelming hospitals for free care, socialism.

The health care debate illustrates how powerful the fear of catastrophe is. Fear is our default setting, if you will; and today, pressure groups, politicians, the media are using it to control us.

By nature, we're fearful creatures.

Of course, that persistent ache or pain means terminal cancer. Of course, our trouble remembering names signifies Alzheimer's. Of course, that family member in crisis again won't survive, this time.

Our tendency to assume the worse outcome, or to catastrosphize, is ancient, primal. Our innate physiological alarm to flee from danger, or to take up a stone or club to protect ourselves and our loved ones from those hungry wolves outside our caves.

But today, we don't have to fear the wolves. Catastrophe doesn't have to be our default setting, unless we like Talk Radio and like being scared. Like that rush of adrenaline, as a psychologist friend described it to me yesterday.

In the gospel of John, Jesus says to His disciples: Do not be afraid. I have conquered the world.

I find myself thinking catastrophically, I remember I'm a Christian--one who believes in the resurrection and in God's power to raise Jesus from death to life. I live in the hope of the resurrection.

Yes, bad things happen and will go on happening to us and those we love. And there are times when we need that physiological flight/fight response to help us survive legitimate, real danger. After all, creation is still groaning, awaiting the fullness of new life in God.

It will be awhile before the wolf and the lamb lie down and feed together.

But for those whose faith is in God, catastrophe is not always a certainty. Not every dark cloud has an even darker lining. Not every medical test means terminal disease. Not every bad thing that happens leads to worse things.

I remember sitting in an ER room at the bedside of a family member whom I feared might die. And a wise and faithful friend--who knew something of near-death experiences--said to me, "Ken, don't think, 'What if',' but think, 'What is.'"

Her counsel redirected my attention, and imagination, from a catastrophic future, which was my response to the unknown, to the present moment. I got control of myself, or rather God got control of me.

Instead of fearing, I could do something else, something constructive and positive. In the moment, I could pray. I could wipe my loved one's forehead with a wet wash cloth. I could read the Scriptures. I could trust God.

I thank God every day that my loved one survived. I know the crisis could have turned out differently, even catastrophically. The worst could have happened. For in the end, we'll all suffer and die.

Nevertheless, because we walk in a dark world in the light of the resurrection, we Christians look to the future not in dread, but in hope. Not as the day of doom, but of gladness. The day when we shall meet our Lord face to face and are reunited with Him and with all those we love.

And on that day, there will be nothing left to fear, no catastrophe waiting to happen. But only joy, endless joy.

Back to the garden

2009-08-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

Penny and I went to see the film, Fresh, Friday night at the Gillloz Theatre.

The screening was hosted by the Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance, whose original goal was to plant 1,000 vegetable gardens in Springfield. One of the speakers said more than 3,000 gardens have been planted locally.

According to Fresh, American agriculture is increasingly controlled by big business, which is producing huge quantities of food in ways that wrecking the environment and endangering consumers.

Industrially produced food from corporate farms and feed lots is loaded with antibiotics and pesticides, which are harmful to our bodies. Moreover, this food is of minimal value nutritionally.

Maybe "an apple a day" is no longer good advice--unless it's a locally grown apple.

Fresh also explores solutions to our food crisis. Solutions include planting backyard and community gardens and raising our own fruits and vegetables; and shopping at farmers' markets and grocery stores that carry food produced or grown locally on small family farms and ranches.

Buying our food from small farmers and ranchers, who are our neighbors, means that we get delicious, nutritious food. It's free of pesticides and antibiotics. And it was produced in ways that preserved the earth.

Buying locally also keeps money here and promotes a healthy job-producing economy.

Surely, "fresh and healthy" was what God had in mind when He commanded those first humans to "tend and till" the garden. In eating the produce from our own gardens and in buying food from local farmers and ranchers, we take take another step in our return to Eden, life as God created it to be.

A lament for Teddy

2009-08-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

Like so many others in America, I grieve the death of Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Despite his many flaws, Ted Kennedy was a man with an enormous heart, especially when it came to the powerless, "the widows and orphans," as James describes them in his epistle for this Sunday.

This last of the Kennedy brothers cared about the weak and vulnerable, and after losing his way, he eventually found his way, discovering that his calling was to do something tangible, usually legislatively, to ease the distress under which the powerless lived.

I'd like to see more politicians with hearts--indeed giant Ted-Kennedy-size hearts--not for interest groups and campaign contributors, but for people who have no voice, no power and who need someone with a voice and power to advocate and act on behalf of them.

The U.S. Senate has a lot less heart today. I pray it's only temporary.

Sharing in God's creative activity

2009-08-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Penny and I had tea Sunday afternoon with a friend and church member. We've joined Charlotte for occasional afternoon teas on Sundays for some 10 years now. Tea with her is always a renewing opportunity to relax with good conversation and to enjoy her lemon bundt cake and other treats.

After many years of friendship, I thought I knew Charlotte well. Until Sunday, when I discovered something new about her, although not surprising: Charlotte writes a poem every morning. She has for many years.

"Do you share them?"Penny and I asked.

"No,"she said. "They're just for me." Her poems reflect her private thoughts and feelings.

One of the many things that impresses me about Charlotte is that she's engaged in daily creativity.

My daily creative act is writing--these blog posts and other columns, sermons, short stories, and longer pieces of fiction.

You might create with words, too, or with paint and canvas, with flowers and plants, with food, with needle and thread, with musical instruments, with fabrics, with clay or stone.

However we create, we participate with God in His continuing creation. That work began at the very beginning. In Genesis 2, God tells the first humans to till and tend the garden. Working with God, they're to take part in bringing beauty and fruitfulness to God's creation.

When we exercise our creativity, even for a few minutes a day, in whatever way brings us delight, you and I are are one with God in the act of making something new. And creation is a better place for it.

Be creative, then, and be with God.

Reaching out to life

2009-08-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Every day, Penny and I look at our favorite baby picture of June Elizabeth, first-born grand daughter. Mama Clare is holding her. June is smiling big and throwing her arms out to a new world waiting to be discovered.

My friend Peter--who's somewhere in his 70s--is just like June Elizabeth. His arms outstretched to the world in joyful wonder and appreciation.

The other day at the Men's Fellowship breakfast, I sat next to Peter. He was full of energy and good cheer, telling me he'd just finished an early, vigorous walk.

Although no longer practicing medicine full time, he's still consulting and still learning about his profession. When I told him about a person I knew who went blind after surgery because of a medication he'd received, Peter spoke into his tape recorder: "Look into drug given to patients who are having heart surgery. Drug could cause blindness."

Peter's studying law on his own, simply because he's interested; he devours books, either listening to them on CD as he drives around town, or sitting down and reading them at home. Right now, he's reading Les Miserables. "I hadn't read it before," he said, with the excitement of discovery in his voice. He likes to travel abroad. He volunteers in the community. He's an avid gardener.

I don't want my epitaph to read: "Kenneth L. Chumbley. He stopped living long before he died."

I want to throw out my arms to life, living every day as a gift from God--full of discoveries to be made, challenges to meet, adventures to have, joys to celebrate.

As the car window decal proclaims, "Life is good." It is, because God is good and everything God makes is good. Today is good.

And I'm joining June Elizabeth and Peter, throwing out my arms to life, whatever it brings, and enjoying every second of it. And making every second count.

Living transitions

2009-08-20T11:43:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours is sad today; she's saying goodbye to her daughter who's going off to boarding school in another country.

Other parents are sad as they move sons and daughters into college dormitories on distant campuses, or wave goodbye to their children as they go to school for the first time, or see a child move in with the other parent after a divorce.

I was sad when Clare and her girls moved from an apartment nearby to a rental house on the other side of town, where they'd have much more room. I feared Penny and I would see much less of them.

There are many transitions we humans confront daily.

Each transition represents change and is a kind of little death. Life as we knew it is no more. We move, by choice or not, from the known to the unknown. And that movement is both scary and sad.

But there's something positive about transition, too, and paradoxical. For to change is to grow. To lose is to gain. To die is to live.

In letting go of the little one who's starting school, or that young adult who's becoming a college freshman, we're participating in that person's growth and in our own. (And that one who's stepping onto the school bus or sitting in his or her first lecture course in college is also letting go.)

Our son or daughter is moving into the future that God intends--becoming independent, making his or her own choices, finding his or her own happiness along the way.

And we who let go grow in the process. We gain something we'd otherwise miss. We learn about ourselves--if only how to turn loose of those we love, to grieve, and to find new life for ourselves.

In transitions, there's a foreshadowning of that greatest one--death--when we'll move from this physical life into eternal life with God through the power of the resurrection.

Poet T.S. Elliot writes that in every ending, there's a beginning.

May God bless our endings with beginnings.

Town hall meetings

2009-08-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

The health care reform town hall meetings have become shouting matches, which is disappointing.

Reform opponents are exciting fear in Americans and turning them out to scream at elected officials, spreading outlandish and false charges about what's proposed in various House and Senate reform bills.

The media seize on the sight of the hapless representative or senator--Senator Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania the other day comes to mind--as he or she stands mute at the town hall meeting, listening to the invective.

The minute the lies are uttered, they become material for the next cable news broadcast or radio talk-show harangue. Orwell, in 1984, showed that if you tell a lie enough, people begin to believe it's the truth.

With the current town hall meetings, I see politics at its worst. I see dirty tricks at work. These meetings are about political theatre, not about rational discussion, even debate, of a significant issue.

The meetings are spreading misinformation, including outright lies--Sarah Palin herself, in commenting on her use of the phrase "death panels," admitted that she "made things up"--as part of the effort to sabotage reform. I'm puzzled by Ms. Palin's admission, because she's made such a major issue of her Christianity. And I thought lying was a sin, the breaking of the ninth commandment.

As long as people lie and the media knowingly disseminate their lies, there will be no useful public discourse on health care reform or anything else, and this country will be no closer to solving our major problems, which threaten us.

Town hall meetings that are no more than stages for spreading falsehoods do nothing to advance the discussion and move us toward solutions, but do a lot to injure democracy.

Paying tribute to Archbishop Tutu, Medal of Freedom recipient

2009-08-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

The retired Anglican Archbishop of South Africa, The Most Rev. Desmond Tutu, receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom today from President Obama at the White House.

Archbishop Tutu is one of 16 recipients--all deserving of this nation's highest civilian award for service. Others include retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy.

My wife Penny and I were blessed to spend a semester with Bishop Tutu at The General Theological Seminary in 1984. We were students in his lecture course on the Modern Church. We enjoyed his inspirational lectures, which drew heavily from his experiences fighting apartheid in his native country and for human rights for "colored" peoples there.

I was moved by his accounts of the struggle for justice and appreciated where his impulse for justice originated: from a deep faith in the God of justice, freedom, reconciliation, and peace.

I used to see Bishop Tutu at General's Chapel of the Good Shepherd early in the morning. He was always on his knees in prayer. When there was a Eucharist in the chapel, he was present, sometimes celebrating and preaching.

For him, daily prayer, along with the Holy Eucharist shaped his spirituality, the image of the Compassionate Christ in him, and fired his passion for justice for all God's people, especially those to whom it had been denied for too long.

For Bishop Tutu, the central motif that powered his struggle for justice in South Africa--and likely still does in other contexts today--was and is God's liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt and leading of them to freedom in Canaan; and with that freedom, God's choice or election of them for service to Him, carrying on God's struggle for bringing fullness of life to all people, because all people are precious to Him.

Bishop Tutu taught me less by his words and more by the holiness of his life. His is a life dedicated to Christ, to daily transformation in Him through prayer, worship, and study; and to serving others in Christ's Name, especially the powerless and needy.

So, congratulations to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, saint of the modern church and example of Christ-like living and ministry. And thank you, Bishop Tutu, for showing me the kind of person and servant Christ calls me to be.

Thoughts on my birthday

2009-08-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

I celebrated my 56th birthday yesterday. It was a joyful day, one of my best birthdays yet, in part because of how I thought about it.

In the past, I've often felt depressed on my birthday, because I'd think about people close to me who'd forgotten the day. I'd brood myself into darkness, feeling sorry for myself and saying, "Poor, poor me."

But this birthday was different. I thought not about the people who'd forgotten my birthday, but about the many people who'd remembered it with cards, phone calls, and other greetings.

And I was thankful they did and thankful for their love and friendship.

With many things in life, I choose happiness or sadness by the way I think about them. And yesterday, I chose to think about my birthday in a different way, emphasizing the positive over the negative.

And this year, my birthday was bright, not dark.

Mind the Gap?

2009-08-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

If you've been to London and ridden the tube, you've heard the frequent announcement, "Mind the gap."

It's a warning to be careful and avoid stepping into the space between the platform and the tube car. You hear the same warning when you ride the trains in Britain.

I'm thinking about gaps this evening after reading Evening Prayer and the gospel lesson for the Daily Office. It's from Mark 9. Verse 37 and following speak to me--or rather God the Holy Spirit speaks to me.

Jesus is teaching his disciples, when He reaches out and welcomes a child. Children in his day, first century Palestine, were nobodies. They had no rights--no value, really.

And yet, here Jesus--God with us--is, receiving the child and putting his arm around the child. He says that if you receive a child, you receive me and receive the One who sent me.

What I hear God the Holy Spirit saying to me is that when I receive anyone who is weak and worthless in the eyes of this world, then I receive Jesus and the One who sent Him, the Heavenly Father Himself.

When I receive the other, I welcome him or her. I put my arm around the other in an act of friendship, solidarity, service. I love the other and receive Jesus and the One who sent Him.

And God receives me, puts His arm around me. We're one.

When I fail to love, I let the gap between me and God remain. But when I mind the gap and remember to love the other, then I close the gap between me and God. I'm united to God.

So mind that gap.

The faces of hunger

2009-08-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

I spent an hour Wednesday afternoon looking at the faces of hunger, and it's sad, very sad.

Springfield, Missouri's hungry are children and infants; the elderly, people on oxygen, the blind. They're single people and families, black and white--and all poor.

I joined three members of Christ Episcopal Church, who were working a two-hour shift at Crosslines, a ministry of the Council of Churches of the Ozarks.

Christ Church supports council ministries from our parish budget, with special gifts and offerings, including canned goods on Sundays at the Holy Eucharist, and with hundreds of hours of service each year. (I serve on the Board of Directors of the Council of Churches.)

On Wednesday we put together food items, ensuring that each individual or family, had a balanced diet for three days. We packed brown paper grocery bags with hot dogs, hamburger, and chicken for protein--until it ran out--vegetables, including fresh ones from home gardens; canned goods, even a few candy bars. We teased that we'd keep some of them for ourselves, but we gave them away.

The food sacked, I handed out the bags at the window, where people waited for their orders. Every person said thank you.

Qualified people may receive food from Crosslines three times each year. The limit is because the ministry has to stretch its food supplies more and more these days, given that hunger is rising in the Ozarks and nationwide.

According to a 2008 hunger study, 742, 486 Missourians live in poverty. The poverty rate in Missouri is 13 percent. We rank 21st among the states for poverty. Some 310, 000 Missouri households are "food insecure" or 12.9 percent of all households. And another 118,000 households are "very low food secure." (For more, go to: http://www.masw.org/programs/hunger.php )

These statistics are from 2007, the latest I could find, and were compiled well before the current Great Recession, which began in December 2008.

Looking at the hungry people at Crosslines on Wednesday, I was saddened, saying to myself, "This shouldn't be--not in a country as rich as ours, not in a city as generous as this one."

But I was also heartened that Pam, Kathy, Carol, and many other local Christians are at Crosslines five days a week, reaching out to others with Christ's love and doing what our Lord Himself did--feeding the hungry.

Thanks be to God.

Go slow

2009-08-04T13:27:00.001-07:00

I need to start paying attention to those traffic signs that say, "Slow." I need to slow down my driving and my living.

It's time for me to join the Slow Movement.

There's the Slow Food Movement--people who are buying fresh produce grown near them, cooking meals at home--sometimes with their friends sharing the preparation; and then savoring every bite of the meal.

There might even be a Slow Reading Movement emerging. On National Public Radio one morning, I heard Irish poet and novelist Nick Laird say that he'd been reading Dr. Samuel Johnson lately. Johnson's 18th century prose--elegant and complex--made Laird stop and savor every word of it.

Laird said this slow, careful approach to reading literature contrasted with the modern tendency to gobble up every word of text as fast as we can.

And there ought to be a Slow Spirituality Movement--spirituality being our daily ways of relating to God's Holy Spirit in us.

I often find myself rushing through my daily prayers and Scripture reading, my centering prayer time each day, my journal writing, even rushing through my leading of worship at church. (I sometimes peek at my watch during the Holy Eucharist.)

Too often, I rush my relationship with God--but God never rushes His relationship with me. God always takes time with me and for me.

Like an attentive, loving parent, God's always right there--listening to me, comforting me, directing me, strengthening me, perhaps even saying, "Ken, what's the rush? We have all the time in the world. In this life and in the life to come."

As 21st Century people, we're all in too much of a hurry (it's true for our children, too.), And we have the hypertension, the heart disease, addictions, depression, and anxiety disorder to prove it.

We need to take time and enjoy whatever we're doing as fully as possible. Slowing down helps us experience that more abundant life that Jesus offers us.

So, the next time you're rushing through dinner, speeding through that yellow light, glancing at your watch during the Holy Eucharist, skipping your daily prayers and Scripture reading because you don't have time, look.

See it? That sign--from God--that says, "Slow." Pay attention to it.

What's the heart of the matter?

2009-07-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

After I read the Scriptures, I like to sit for just a few minutes and reflect, and sometimes, I'll write a response in my journal. I did so today, taking as my prompt the Daily Office Gospel, Mark 7.1-23.

Jesus is disputing with a group of Pharisees, who reproach him and his disciples for eating without washing their hands.

The Pharisees are serious about their Jewish faith. They want to do the right thing, at least the majority of them do, I believe.

They're just wrong about the right thing.

The right thing, Jesus says, the heart of the matter, is not the external, but the internal. It's not dirty hands, but a dirty hearts.

Jesus knows these Pharisees, that their hearts are filthy.

To paraphrase Him: "Moses says you must set aside some resources for God. But you invoke Moses and set aside all your resources, including those that Moses says should be used for the care of your aged parents, for your own selfish purposes."

Jesus sees through the Pharisees's empty words and practices to their hearts and challenges them, teaching them that what counts with His Heavenly Father.

What's important is a person's heart, which reflects the quality of his or her relationship with God.

Jesus wants these Pharisees to examine their hearts:

Are you loyal to God above all? Have you given your lives to God completely, including the uses of your resources? Do you seek God and God alone, live for God and God alone?

They aren't and don't. Jesus may not have reached all of them, but perhaps He reached some of them with the truth.

Today, as I entered into a conversation with Jesus, I examined my own heart and found it unclean. The Gospel led me to repentence and deeper conversion of life.

And the gospel prompted me to think about how this text might speak to the church today and specifically about our clash over human sexuality, homosexuality in particular.

Aren't many of us focused on the wrong thing? Concerned, sometimes obsessively, about externals, not internals, about outward things, not inward things, about washed or unwashed hands, not washed or unwashed hearts.

We've made this debate about sex, when it should appropriately be about relationships--about
the people involved in heterosexual or homosexual relationships: the character of the people involved, the quality of their relationships, and their commitment to Christ.

Whether we're gay or straight, are we truly committed to Christ and to following Him as our Savior and Lord, especially in all our relationships? Gay or straight, does our love for others, including that physical expression of love, reflect the love of Jesus Christ?

The Gospels and the New Testament, together with the Prayer Book sacramental rite of Holy Matrimony uphold Jesus as the standard and measure of love.

Jesus showed His love for humanity by serving us, by suffering and dying and rising from the grave for our salvation, by teaching us and empowering by the Holy Spirit to love, even giving up our lives for others, friends and enemies alike.

His heart was pure. His love was pure.

Whatever our sexuality, our love for others should reflect this pure, Christly love. The heart of the matter is not clean hands, but a clean heart. A heart that is wholly God's and loves out of it.

Angry with God

2009-07-28T07:42:00.001-07:00

She said, "I'm so angry with God."

I listened and encouraged her to tell God how she felt. Not to hold back anything.

When bad things happen, people often get angry with God. I've been angry with God myself on many occasions, and I've told God, "I'm angry with you." I've also said, "It's just not fair."

Perhaps you've been in a similar place, or one day will be.

It's impossible to live in this world and not experience trauma and tragedy: a child develops a life-threatening or life-limiting illness. Someone close to us dies suddenly. Family conflict worsens; it doesn't ease.

And we think, "It's so unfair. We've done our part: believed in God, gone to church, said our prayers, given tithes on our earnings, lived good lives.

But God's let us down, failing to keep His part of the bargain, which is to protect us and our loved ones from pain and suffering.

So, we do what's natural, human, and blame God, saying God didn't keep His part of the bargain. And we rail at Him. We might even stop believing in God, thinking Him indifferent, cruel or non-existent.

But the truth is that God has never promised us suffering-free lives. We'll all know heartbreak. Perhaps even many, many times.

That's why the cross is important to me. Why I cling to the cross, which, to paraphrase the apostle Paul, human beings use for death, but God uses for life.

The passion and death of Jesus, the Son of God and Savior of the world, show us a God who opens His arms wide to human suffering, even death on the cross, taking it all to Himself and transforming it.

Jesus suffers, dies, and is buried.

But on the third day, God raises Him from the grave, demonstrating that His love is stronger than anything bad that could ever happen to us in this world, even death. Nothing can separate us from Him and His love for us in Jesus Christ.

There will be a suffering and death for all of us. For all of those we love.

But God promises us that He'll hold us up in the midst of our traumas and tragedies. God will journey with us until we reach that place, that new world, where, Isaiah prophesies, "suffering and sorrow will be no more."

In the Easter acclamation, we declare our faith, "Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia."

Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God, is risen--over the worst things that can ever happen to us here. That's the hope of the Christian faith. That's the Gospel.

Yes, I'll still get angry with God. I'll still say it's not fair when something bad happens to me or a family member or a parishioner.

And I'll let God know how I feel, because I'm in relationship with Him, a deep and close one. I know He can handle my feelings, even my anger and disappointment.

And I know, by faith, that I can handle anything that comes my way in this life, with His help.

Steps in prayer

2009-07-27T16:04:00.000-07:00

The other day I was leaving the fitness center after a swim and saw a church member. We waved to one another. I walked over, shook his hand, and we chatted.

Prayer is like that.

If you read books on prayer--and I've read bookshelves full of them--you'll find plenty of definitions of prayer, most of them providing helpful insights into this ancient spiritual practice and enhancing one's experience of it.

Early one morning last week, while it was still dark, I was unable to sleep and got up. As I usually do, the first thing I did when I awoke was to pray.

If was as if God spoke to me, revealing a definition of prayer that was both simple and profound.

God defined prayer for me, saying, "Prayer is taking a step closer to me."

But back to the fitness center.

When I saw my friend in the lobby, I took a step toward him. Another step. Another. And then another until we shook hands and talked with one another. My steps had taken me closer to him.

Similarly, the spiritual distance between us and God--distance that exists because of us, not because of God--is reduced and then eliminated as we take one step after another, closer and closer to God through the daily discipline of prayer.

It doesn't matter the kind of prayer we pray--thanksgiving, petition, intercession, confession, oblation, adoration--but only that we pray. And pray daily. As many times as we can every day.

God, I'll keep taking those steps toward you every day, until we're face to face, hand in hand, as my friend and I were in the fitness center lobby.

A response to rising atheism

2009-07-24T10:29:00.001-07:00

In New York City, according to the New York Times today, an atheist group is sponsoring an advertising campaign. They're putting their messages on buses, subways, even overhead, with airplanes trailing banners that say something like, "You don't have to believe in God to be a good, moral person."

And the campaign is having some success--encouraging atheists, the article notes, to "come out of the closet" and boast their atheist identity. Further, the campaign is converting others, turning them to belief in non-belief.

The Times asserts that atheism is on the rise.

I don't have anything against atheists personally. I know atheists. And doubtless many of them are good, moral people--their motivation not theistic, but something else, perhaps humanistic.

What I do have against some atheists, however, particularly Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great, is that they use the "straw man" argument so often in their attacks on religion.

The straw man is that logical fallacy where one distorts one's opponent's argument and then knock it down effortlessly. In doing so, one looks like a genius.

One of the favorite straw man arguments that atheists make involves citing some terrible thing that religious people did: the Crusades, the Inquisition, Israeli brutality against Palestinians, September 11.

Citing these examples, one then concludes that religion is malign, religious people deluded at best and dangerous or deadly at worst, and one rejects religion.

Arguing this way, atheists easily dismiss religion and religious people and the many contributions they have made to humankind because of their faith commitment.

These contributions include: orphanages, hospitals, and schools; the abolition of slavery, civil rights for oppressed people, and in my Episcopal Church today, a genuine commitment to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, eliminating poverty, disease, and other global curses on humankind.

I'm sympathetic to, even appreciative of atheists.

When I get to know atheists, I usually find some deep hurt, disappointment or disillusionment because we religious people often fail to live what we believe; we Christians, for instance, follow the God of love and yet we do some unloving things to others.

Still, I'm grateful to atheists; they serve an important function for people who believe in God--if we take their critiques of us seriously and then live more fully and faithfully according to the best of our traditions.

The God of surpluses

2009-07-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

You've probably heard or read the word "surplus" very little lately in the media, even in the church. We're fixated on budged deficits. At the federal, state, local levels. In our personal, fiscal lives. In our churches or other houses of worship.

There's just not enough money or food or time or whatever it is to go around. So, hold back. Cut back. Conserve your precious, limited resources. Stock your cellar with canned goods and bottled water. In fact, go to your cellar now, because the sky really is falling.

It's time for everyone to fixate somewhere else for awhile, even always. And that's on God.

God reminded me of my need to refocus--off fear--this morning during Morning Prayer and in my reading and study both of the gospel lesson for today, Mark 4.1-20, and in my reading ahead for my sermon this Sunday, John's account in 6. 1-21 of Jesus' feeding of the crowd.

Feeding--or, more broadly, God's meeting our needs as people, as citizens, as the followers of Jesus Christ--comes through faith in God who loves us and by acting in faith.

Faith--I'm continuing to learn, as I did in my prayer with Scripture this morning-- releases God's power to act upon us, within us, through us in the world.

To borrow from the Mark reading this morning, God takes that tiny seed, His word of assurance to us that He loves and cares for us, that word which is received by us in faith, and God makes the word root and grow and bear abundance. That abundance more than meets our needs, whatever they are, however great they are, with a surplus left over.

I rejoice that my God is a God not of deficit thinking and acting, but a God of surplus thinking and acting.

And in His word to me today, I hear Him say, Ken, stop living in fear. Live in faith. Focus on me, not on fear; on my surplus, not on your deficit.

General Convention 2009 and what's really important

2009-07-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Episcopal Church is in the news once again because General Convention is under way, and deputies to convention, together with bishops of the church are discussing and debating certain realities and how the church should respond to them.

One reality--"life on the ground," as some people at convention describe it--is human sexuality. Some of us human beings are heterosexual; others are homosexual; and still others are bisexual and transgendered. Some people, reportedly, have no sexual interest or desire at all.

Scientific studies show that a particular sexuality or a range of sexualities is a given in our creation, like skin color. Ultimately, sexuality is a mystery. I can't begin to understand why I'm heterosexual, while friends, church members, others are something else.

Whatever their sexuality, I try to accept people for who they are. Sexuality is not the defining factor or issue for me.

What defines human beings, for me, is not their sexuality, but their character. The kind of people they are and how they live their values and beliefs daily.

What defines Christians, despite a lot of the media coverage of General Convention and the rhetoric and actions of certain groups within the church, is not fundamentally our sexuality, but our relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And what defines us is our commitment to Christ, which we show daily by living our baptismal promises, including loving our neighbors, seeking and serving the needy; working for justice, reconciliation, and peace; respecting the dignity of every human being.

At General Convention, we Episcopalians are dealing with many different realities--with what we're meeting on the ground, as it were--sexuality being one reality. Facing and responding to the world as it is, not the world as it used to be or would like it to be, is one of the things I most appreciate about my church.

We face reality, rather than flee it. And we're doing so now, at convention thorugh leglislation, just as secular leglislatures meet, discuss issues and differences, and make decisions, which often involve compromises. In the case of convention, these decisions often become laws or canons.

This is the legislative process that we, the Episcopal Church, developed when we approved our first Constitution and Canons in the 18th century. It's not perfect. What system is?

Ultimately, however, what should guide us as individual Christians and collectively as the church is not canon law; Jesus lived and died and rose again to show that love--self-giving, self-emptying love--should rule us, not law. Love, he teaches, fulfills the law and the prophets.

And love shows itself is working for the very best for others, even suffering and dying for them, whoever they are and whatever their sexuality.

We Christians should stand out before others, especially the skeptics and cynics, by how selflessly and sacrifically we love, especially those with whom we disagree or even dislike, not by whether we win or lose votes and gain the passage or rejection of certain resolutions.

Look at how they love one another should be what people say of us.

God will judge me not on the basis of my sexuality, but on the degree to which I've loved according to the example of Jesus Christ and in His Spirit.

And I believe that's how God will judge the Episcopal Church and every church, too.

Hot

2009-07-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

Grand daughter June Elizabeth sees the stove at home and says, "Hot. Hot." She takes a bite of dinner and pronounces it, "Hot. Hot."

I wish the world's leaders would listen to June Elizabeth and do something about the heat. Now.

The majority of the world's leading scientists, along with some world leaders, our president among them, acknowledge that the earth is warming up at an alarming rate, putting my grand daughters--all of us in peril.

And yet, according to The New York Times report today on the G-8 Summit in Italy, world leaders are unable to agree on how to cool off the planet and prevent the ruinious consequences of climate change.

It's hot, and it's getting hotter.

In the past when Penny and I visited Scotland in the summer, we enjoyed cloudy days, a little drizzle or rain, and cool temperatures. But this year, we felt as if we were back home in Missouri in July, sweating through heat, humidity, searing sunshine.

The only relief we found was during our hikes in the mountains. (But for how long will I be able to say that?)

As I stood on the mountain tops of western Scotland and the islands, looking out onto the blue sea and the green slopes below me, I thought about the beauty of God's creation and about the peril that creation faces because of our patterns of wasteful consumption and our over-reliance upon fossil fuels.

(And, yes, Penny and I left a large carbon footprint ourselves in traveling by airplane to Scotland and hiring a car for our first week there and buying grapes from Chile at one of the shops. But we're going to buy carbon credits to compensate for our consumption of fossil fuels.)

June Elizabeth is right. "Hot. Hot." It's time for our world leaders and for everyone else, especially those who still insist that the planet is not endangered, to realize just how hot it is and to turn down the temperature on the stove.